WAWC welcomes wildlife law reforms in animal welfare strategy
The UK government’s wide-ranging new Animal Welfare Strategy for England, published yesterday (22 December 2025) includes measures to improve the protection of companion, farmed and wild animals, which have been warmly welcomed by animal welfare advocates.
The wild animal chapter of the strategy opens:
Wild animals are sentient, can experience pain, suffering and pleasure and should be treated with respect. Where wild animals come into contact with humans, or are under the control of humans, they are at risk of experiencing harm.
Our understanding of animal welfare, and the needs of wild animals, continues to evolve, supported by the work of scientists and other experts and researchers. This can lead to situations where legislation falls out of step with the latest evidence and action is needed to prevent wild animals from suffering cruelty, pain or distress.
This is entirely consistent with the WAWC approach. Such formal recognition of the sentience of wild animals is essential to underpin progressive policy and legislation that keeps pace with scientific knowledge.
Three key pledges
The government’s declared objective is:
To ensure wild animals are treated with respect as other animals are by:
updating legislation that has not kept pace with the latest scientific evidence
continuing to protect and promote high standards of welfare for kept wild animals – those species of animals not normally kept in Great Britain
The main pledges for improving the welfare of free-living wild animals are:
· a ban on trail hunting,
· a ban on snares
· the introduction of a close season for hares
The WAWC strongly welcomes all these proposals. They mirror measures already in place in Scotland and, in the case of the snaring ban, in Wales. Prior to the 2024 general election, a ban on snares featured in the Labour Party manifesto, and the commitment has since been repeated by Ministers . It was also one of the key reforms recommended by WAWC in our 2024 General Election briefing.
A ban on trail hunting.
The strategy draws on longstanding and widespread concerns that trail hunting is being used as a “smokescreen” for fox hunting with hounds. A consultation will take place in early 2026 on how to deliver a ban on the activity.
Trail hunting became established in the wake of the Hunting Act 2004, which prohibited the hunting of wild mammals with more than two dogs. It involves the use of a full pack of hounds to follow a trail laid using an animal-derived scent, such as fox urine, in areas where target animals – usually foxes – are present. It is common for the dogs to pick up the scent of a live animal instead of following the trail, leading to the pursuit and death of the animal – an outcome that Act was intended to prevent, due to the level of suffering it inflicts. One advocacy group has estimated that 46% of registered ‘trail hunts’ chased or killed foxes in the 2022/23 season, based on reports from hunt monitors.
The significant animal welfare concerns arising from these frequent “accidents” led to a pre-emptive ban on trail hunting in Scotland in 2023, even though it was not practised north of the border. When consulting on the issue, the Scottish Government drew on the English experience, noting that “There have been occasions where packs hunting a trail have encountered a fox and the fox was hunted in contravention of English law”. Over two-thirds of respondents (70%) to the Scottish Government consultation supported the proposed ban on trail hunting.
A ban on snares
WAWC strongly welcomes the government’s recognition of the animal suffering caused by snares in the English countryside, and its renewed commitment to a ban. Report after report – including WAWC position papers – have highlighted the impact of these indiscriminate wire nooses on foxes, hares and rabbits, as well as many non-target animals. A ban will be popular – a YouGov poll for the League Against Cruel Sports in January 2025 found that 71% of adults in England believed it should be illegal to use snares.
Snares were banned in Wales in 2023 and in Scotland in 2024. There is no timetable given in the strategy for the required consultation but WAWC hopes it see it expedited and implemented in legislation as soon as possible. A new WAWC briefing on snaring and the need for England to catch up with the devolved administrations is now available. It makes the case for urgent action.
The government also plans to work with experts to develop evidence on the animal welfare impact of other traps, such as older models of spring traps, mole traps and live capture traps for corvids. The review will consider “other traps used to catch wildlife in England for which welfare concerns have been raised and carefully consider any recommendations for further action”. WAWC has long advocated for such a review, for example in our reviews of lethal and non-lethal traps and our recommendations for wild animal welfare after the 2024 general election., and we hope to contribute to the process. Here again, there is crossover with developments in Scotland, where a licensing scheme for spring traps and corvid cage traps was created by the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, although implementation of the measures has been considerably delayed.
Close season for hares
The strategy aims “to reduce the number of adult hares being shot in the breeding season, meaning that fewer young hares are left motherless and vulnerable to starvation and predation “. Advocates for hare conservation and welfare have been calling for this basic protection for many years.
The action proposed in the strategy is to “consider how to bring forward and introduce a close season for hares”. WAWC believes that should not be an unduly difficult process: in Scotland, brown hares have been protected during their breeding season - between 1 February and 30 September - since 2011. Mountain hares are protected all year round.
Additional pledges
In addition to these specific pledges, the strategy acknowledges the sentience of decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs, as recognised in the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, and the need to improve the way these animals are managed throughout the supply chain. The government does not currently plan new legislation but intends to publish guidance on legal requirements for welfare at time of killing, which will clarify that live boiling is not an acceptable killing method.
On enforcement, the strategy notes the disparity between penalties for cruelty to wild animals, compared with domesticated or kept animals and plans to review and strengthen these “so that they are consistent with higher levels of sentencing available for animal welfare offences against pets and livestock”.
More to do
WAWC welcomes the strategy and congratulates the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Emma Reynolds MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Biosecurity, Borders and Animal Welfare, Baroness Hayman of Ullock and other ministerial colleagues on these significant commitments. Ministers have listened to the views of expert stakeholders that specific areas of wildlife legislation have become outdated or in need of amendment. A ban on trail hunting, a ban on all use of snares and protection for pregnant hares and their leverets are important steps on totemic issues.
The proposed changes will help to build consistency across the UK administrations where change has moved at a different pace. As is often said, wild animals do not recognise borders and their welfare needs do not vary according to where they live. The changes will reduce the harms caused to wild animals by human activities and take a step towards recognising their intrinsic value, which is at the heart of WAWC’s work.
In an ideal world, WAWC would like to see more. Addressing issues on an individual basis – while certainly better than leaving them unaddressed – does not help towards a coherent and overarching approach to protecting all sentient animals equally. A modern approach to protecting wild animal welfare by legislation would abandon the piecemeal approach taken over decades, or indeed centuries. In our election briefing, we called for the current complex patchwork of wildlife laws to be consolidated into a single statute, with appropriate sanctions for wildlife crimes. Notoriously, UK wildlife legislation has fallen behind our understanding of wild animals’ sentience, their welfare needs and sustainable approaches to their management, where management is justified.
Of course, there are always voices claiming that certain animals are pests, aliens, too numerous, and in need of control: these have already been raised in reaction to the strategy. Even the best scientifically-evidenced reforms seem to require debate over years or even decades in the face of opposition from traditional wildlife “management”. But those views are often based on tradition, rather than science. A modern approach would take it as read that sentient wild animals have the right to live unmolested, as far as possible, in our shared environment. Animal welfare and conservation should be seen as fundamental to a healthy environment and a healthy society.