Shooting estates always state that spring traps - which are designed to snap an animals' back - are humane , but they can instead cause drawn-out and agonising deaths, snapping the bones of small mammals and birds and trapping them until they die. Legislation on the traps that could be used to kill Stoats was changed in April 2020 because they were found to be taking too long to die (so were inhumane), though the new legislation says that Stoats should die 'within 45 seconds' - which is still far too long to be left dying in a trap with broken bones.