Wire snares cause extreme suffering in target and non-target wildlife globally. Snare removal programs, regulation, and selective trap standards can dramatically reduce this widespread form of wildlife welfare harm.
Snare trapping causes some of the most severe and prolonged individual animal suffering among all human-wildlife interactions. Animals caught in wire snares may struggle for hours or days before death, causing tissue damage, dehydration, exhaustion, and extreme psychological distress in animals that can anticipate and fear their situation. This is not a welfare harm hidden in factory farms or obscure to observation — snares are deliberately set by people who understand what they will do. The scale of snaring in some regions has driven endangered species toward extinction while causing suffering in millions of individual animals annually. Snare removal programs that clear thousands of snares from critical wildlife habitat are among the most direct welfare interventions available.