This short video  was sent to me with the message “take you mind off politics for a moment”!  It shows all the wildlife which used a log to cross a stream in Pennsylvania during the course of a year.   Most enjoyable – do watch – but I couldn’t escape the political implications.  There could hardly be a better demonstration of why the use of Fenn Traps on logs within our National  Parks should be banned (see here).

Our National Parks  have nothing like the biodiversity of Pennsylvania, partly a consequence of us living on an island but also because many of our native species are systematically hunted and destroyed.  Much of what’s left, however, still uses logs to cross streams.  This is precisely why these logs and Fenn traps are found all over our grouse moors.  They provide a very effective way for our so called “sporting estates” to kill stoats and weasels.

The video provides a great illustration of why the “bycatch” – or should that be “collateral damage”? –  from this trapping is also  likely to be considerable.  Smaller mammals, such as mice and voles, and birds all use these logs and the cages don’t prevent them from standing on the traps.  How many are killed in this way is never reported but simply swept under the carpet.  That – and the stoats and weasels – should be of concern to our National Park Authorities which have a statutory duty to protect wildlife.

Perhaps the Cairngorms National Park Authority could ask one of the estates in the east Cairngorms Moorland Partnership, which it set up to demonstrate better grouse moor management, to start reporting publicly on all the animals and birds caught in these traps?   Or better still, perhaps the estates, could  set up webcams so that the public can see what is really going on and then judge for itself?