There is no legal limit on the number of snares a shooting estate can lay. While shooting lobbyists might argue that the various codes of practice suggest some sort of restraint, the truth was laid bare in the national press when Llangibby Castle gamekeeper Roy Jones, accused of laying 600 snares on the 3500 acre estate, admitted to around ‘160’ and stressed that nothing he was doing ‘broke the law’. Jones went on to say that, “I am not saying that wiring (snaring) is not cruel. It is. But there is a lot of things in life that are cruel.” A gamekeeper should know about cruelty of course, but that doesn’t make snare use inevitable or excusable.