Traps of the Moscar Estate

2020 Interactive map of current and historic Moscar trap sites – Please note, locations do vary but this may be a useful resource for monitors. 

The Estate gamekeepers utilise a range of wildlife traps in order to eliminate any species which may compromise the grouse stocks. Here are some of the traps which were found routinely in the Peak District National Park during HIT’s Spring 2017 investigation. It is important to note that this is not a comprehensive list and that the gamekeepers are known to set many more snares and traps on the Estate.

PLEASE NOTE that the trap and snare sites come in and out of use depending on the season and other factors. For example, snaring tends to intensify in late-winter/early-spring when females are pregnant, and the keepers can effectively take out an entire litter by killing one female. It is always worth checking the sites and reporting your findings (even if sites are empty), so we can build up an accurate record of the gamekeepers’ activities. Please remember also that snares and traps can be moved. It is always worth surveying around the grid referenced area in case of changes.

Further info available here: Individual Trap Site Details

The local Peak District group Moorland Monitors also keep updated information.

Snares:

Snares are banned in the majority of European countries, as they are known to be indiscriminate and to cause intolerable suffering. Despite this, they remain legal in the UK and are used widely on the Moscar Estate, routinely catching badgers, mountain hares, foxes and even dogs and runners. The HIT found that snares that were set as “free-running” became locked as captured animals struggled to escape and the wires got warped. Breakaway mechanisms which are claimed to allow non-target species to escape failed. Snares were repeatedly set in areas of known badger presence. None of the snare sites the HIT monitored were fully compliant with animal welfare legislation or guidance.

Fearnley Hill Plantation: This site caught and injured a young badger in May 2020. Please be vigilant! Ronksley Lane, Sheffield, S6 6GD. Grid Ref: SK26962 87256 What3Words: diary.market.result

Wyming Brook: This area is heavily persecuted Please check the full area around previously identified sites: SK267861 – snares within small fenced area due west of woodland strip) and SK 26543 86091 – snares in channels in open heather. SK 26153 87292 Follow quad tracks in to find snares. Oaking Clough (SK250872 – snares within the rhodedendrons and around) bordering the popular Sheffield Wildlife Trust SSSI Nature Reserve). Snares persistently re-set here, in an act of breathtaking arrogance from the Moscar Estate.

Stanage Lodge – This area is heavily persecuted Please check the full area around previously identified sites: SK247847 and SK247853 – Snares in the fenced of patch of rhodedendrons and across the open moor. Also SK248852 and SK248852 – snares in another fenced of patch of rhodendrons due east of the lake along the stream, and also over the stream in channels running parallel to the water). Stanage Lodge site caught a vixen on 23rd Nov 2017 – she was safely rescued by a monitor.

Ladybower Reservoir (SK195874- snares in fenced off area 200m south of Lodge Cote).

Yorkshire Bridge: This area is heavily persecuted Please check the full area around previously identified sites: There are snare sites on open access moorland below Bamford Edge. The gamekeepers repeatedly move the snares around the moor so it is important to check the channels in the heather across the moor (SK203851 – Due east of Yorkshire Bridge Inn and just south of Heatherdene woodland). Follow the paths cut into heather below pylons and along dry stone walls – upto 50 snares were set across moorland and in fenced/walled stink pit. The large white plastic water tank is a useful marker. Look out for conifer branches which “funnel” the path around snares. Multiple badgers caught on this site. High risk to dogs and runners. PLEASE MONITOR CLOSELY – HIGH RISK OF INJURY AND DEATH TO BADGERS, MOUNTAIN HARES AND PET DOGS.

Cutthroat Bridge (SK213868 – snares within enclosed small woodland off the track). Known to have caught multiple badgers – identifiable by the deep circular pit dug by the badgers trying to escape. Foxes do not exhibit this behavior.

Bole Hill (SK 222840 – snares set in heather channels of small hillocks, on the open moor just north of New Road, and SK219842 – snares within fenced off copse at north eastern tip of the gully). Snares have also been set along the contour of the hill parallel to New Road between these two sites. Known Mountain Hare territory.

Dennis Knoll (SK225843 – snares around sunken stink bins on moorland,  approx 160 paces over the fence due west from the car park), along the fence line and across the open moorland. High risk to dogs and runners. Known Mountain Hare territory.

Grainfoot Clough (SK195879 – snares set on southern bank of stream but removed as of autumn 2017) and a ladder trap has apparently appeared on this site. Keep vigilant.

Hollow Meadows (SK 237881) – snares in rhodedendrons within woodland.

There were also snare sites reported on private land which is known badger territory. These include High Lees Farm (SK213839 and SK213837).

Please keep out there and let us know your findings.

There are doubtless many more sites across the estate and throughout the national park. Snare sites may be used for a few months a year or for the whole year – sites may become inactive for a time, and it important to keep checking for changes. Key features which may indicate the presence of a snare site are listed below:

• Access points: Snare sites usually start within walking distance of a gate which is reached by vehicle, on the moorland/farmland fringe. They are rarely a long way onto the moor because the keeper needs to access them easily each day. Look for well defined vehicle tracks which come to a stop shortly into the moor.
• “Moorland fringe”: This is the rough boundary where the moor (heathery and often open access) meets farmland (often grassy and private). By controlling the fringe, the keepers act as “gatekeepers” to the moor, controlling who/what can live up there.
• Gullies and Scrub: Keepers will often use the cover of thin woodland to hide a snare site/stink pit, particularly where this features along with a brook, which is the mammals’ water supply. If the wood is fenced off, it is particularly likely. Look on an OS map where the gullies come down off the moor to the fringe. If there is access and any woodland, it is highly worth walking up both sides to check.
• Fencing: Snare sites will often be barbed-wire fenced, with channels opened up around the perimeter for animals to be drawn in (to the central stink bin). Any small fenced off area, particularly with the channels, is highly suspect.
• Rhodedendrons: Favoured by keepers since the Victorian times and a high chance of concealing snares. Often channelled out and lined with snares in a labyrinth towards the stink pit. Truly horrifying to follow round – there may be upto 50 snares in the circuit. Either within other woodland, or fenced off separately on the moor.
• Infrastructure: Snares are often held in by sturdy metal stakes which anchor them to the ground. Even when snares are inactive, the rusty stakes approx 30cm high are often left in along the pathway.
• Nature reserves: Keepers are well known to place snares, badger traps, corvid and raptor traps on the boundaries of nature reserves, as the high populations of wildlife may predate on grouse stocks.
• Stink pits/bins: A bin or bag full of rotting carcasses may remain, even when snares are inactive. Uncovered carcasses may also be strewn.
• Open channels through heather: Not all snare sites are enclosed. Some large sites run across the moorland, in clearly cut channels through the heather.
• Badger setts: Sadly, it is necessary to check the vicinity of badger setts because they are often targeted. Worth checking for snares and cage traps, which may be concealed along dry stone walls under scrub.

Large Mammal Traps:

Numerous large mammal traps are crudely disguised on moorland and farmland around the Estate. Many are sited on active badger territory and there is evidence of badger capture at a trap where a fired gun cartridge was also found. Landowners could be complicit in the persecution of badgers, dispelling the myth of rogue gamekeepers breaking the law in isolation.

The most recent trap was found by monitors on a nature reserve boundary off Redmires Road, at SK 27861 86273.

An active large mammal trap was observed close to Kimber Court Farm at SK23818 82672. Another remained at Overstones Farm (SK246827).

The trap previously seen at Fox Hagg Farm (SK288868) was relocated as of autumn 2017 and needs to be found. Similarly at Lawns Farm (SK286870), Wyming Brook Farm (SK270858) and Brown Edge Farm (SK277842). Please keep looking and help us locate these traps, if still active.

The trap below Stanage Edge (SK235837) has been moved, end 2017. Similarly, the trap at Redmires Reservoir (SK260859 – moved early 2018). Finally a trap above Derwent Reservoir (SK20109 83731) is in situ but disabled. These trap sites may well become active again – please keep monitoring.

There are many more: please report your findings to HIT. Any animal caught in an LMT at this time of year could suffer sub-zero temperatures and exposure, only to be shot at dawn by the gamekeepers.

Fenn Traps:

Fenn traps were internationally condemned in 2016. Yet they are littered along the dry stone walls and across the gullies of the moorland: the “corridors” that small mammals use to move around their territory. They kill numerous weasels, stoats and other small animals living on and around the moors, often just meters from where visitors walk. May be covered by large rocks or wooden boxes along the bottom of dry stone walls.

Bird Traps:

A range of traps are deployed to capture the native birds of the Peak District, generally throughout the spring and summer months. They are ostensibly used to catch corvids such as jays, magpies and crows but can just as easily catch raptors such as buzzards, Hen Harriers, kestrels, Peregrine Falcons and also owls. All bird species suffer terribly in these traps: unable to fly, roost or socialise normally and often tormented by other predators outside the trap. The birds are killed and their bodies added to “stink pits” which attract predators in to be slaughtered.

Ladder traps have been set near to Redmires Reservoir (SK265860) and at Hollow Meadows (SK2288881 – sited on western fringe of wood) amongst many other sites. Clam and Larsen traps were observed at all snare and large mammal trap sites, frequently moved around by the gamekeepers and baited either with live birds, eggs or carrion.

The picture below shows a jay trapped in a Larsen trap at Fox Hagg Farm & Campsite in the Rivelin Valley. Its distress calls attract other birds into the Clam trap next to it, which snaps violently shut on its victim until dispatched by the gamekeeper. The “call bird” may endure many weeks stuck in the trap and its young will almost certainly die left unattended in the nest. The use of jays as call birds is outlawed in Scotland, as they are known to attract raptors. This calls into question the Moscar Estate gamekeeper’s intentions.

These animal and bird traps are part of a wholesale, systematic programme of unregulated wildlife persecution. Hundreds of native animals and birds suffer and die in them each year. This is all so that the Estate owners can rear and protect artifically high numbers of grouse – which are shot in their thousands from August – December by a wealthy minority of bloodsports enthusiasts.

Gamekeepers present their activity as responsible custodianship of the coutryside. The shooting lobby takes credit for the conservation of a small number of ground nesting species such as lapwings and curlews and lauds this as biodiversity.