Rail Trap Caution
10 August 2007
Following a caution issued to a gamekeeper in connection with use of a rail trap or bridge trap (a spring trap set under cover but on a pole crossing a ditch), the NGO has issued the following urgent advice:
All users of rail or bridge traps must ensure that the entrances are restricted by a suitable means to prevent, as far as is possible, entry by non-target species. If they do not do this they may be at risk of prosecution.
Tunnel traps in other locations are invariably set with sticks or some other form of excluder to narrow their entrances. This is certainly best practice too and is arguably a legal requirement whenever and wherever a tunnel trap is set.
For the avoidance of doubt, and in order that a gamekeeper can demonstrate if necessary that he took every reasonable care only to trap target species, the NGO's advice is that a restricting device of some sort should always be used, whether on a rail trap or in any other location.