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My experience is that trying to snare too close to a burrow is ineffective as rabbits are extremely cautious when they emerge. It also isn't good practice to snare where the wire may entangle or get caught up. The wire should also be handled as little as possible to avoid transferring scent.
The stake needs to be really well secured (not a twig 🙄) Hammering a stake in right next to a burrow is a sure fire way to make sure the rabbits bolt via another hole. Check them visually just after dawn and dusk or it is likely that a snared rabbit could be predated by a fox or dog. It is also unfair to leave a snared animal longer than necessary. The rabbit should be immediately dispatched by breaking it's neck and paunched (gutted) so that the meat does not begin to spoil. Retain the liver as it is delicious fried or as paté.
 
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Good advice but, snippet from legalities....

In all parts of the UK, snares may be set to catch foxes, rabbits and brown hares, provided you are the landowner or have the landowner's permission. (You can also legally snare a few other species such as rats and mink, though we would generally advocate other methods for controlling these species.)
 
Just to add a couple more legalities... In Scotland you must have received training on an accredited course on snaring to receive a licence to trap wild animals by snares. There is a further requirement that each snare should have a tag with a number unique to each person licenced to snare.
 
In the UK snares must be designed and made to be free running and non locking so that non target animals may be released uninjured. Fox snares must be designed to have a stop that means it will only draw in to a minimum circumference and no further to avoid strangulation as well as a built in weak point.
There has been recent talk of snaring being totally banned in Wales by the Senedd government because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the humane use of snares.
Please remember to be humane and legal in all your trapping and hunting because you will be judged by an uninformed and unsympathetic general public, any breach of best practice reflects on us all.
 
Am too uninformed to pass judgement on this .

Tho I will ask , when did being humane pass the quick and clean kill rule ?
 
There are traps that capture and there are traps that kill. There is an approved list of kill traps that should be instant, different types and sizes are available for different species…that is one version of humane…then there are things like box traps or snares that are supposed to catch an animal without injuring it. Snares have even been used to catch foxes for the purpose of attaching trackers for research. The whole point of snaring these days is that it shouldn’t even injure the animal let alone kill it. It has been rebranded with the term humane cable restraint or HCR but if an animal isn’t going to be released it must be dispatched quickly and humanely…not left to suffer or be predated.
It’s very different to the American version of snaring which uses locking snares, spring snares that lift the animal off the ground or cut into the animal because of the way they suddenly tighten and lock.
While the American style of trapping is more effective and reliable it does cause unnecessary suffering and death. They also tend to lose a lot of catches to scavengers.
 
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