Legal clarification on use of soft-catch traps for wolf conservation

In a formal response to a request for legal clarification from Germany, the European Commission has decided that soft-catch traps (a type of padded leghold trap) are permissable as a tool in situations where wolves and other large carnivores need to be live captured for conservation related research and management actions. For many years in was believed that the traps were unintentionally covered by the details of a ban on imports of furs caught with inhumane methods. The new clarification opens the way for the use of this effective and humane tool under strictly controlled conditions. The LCIE has also just developed a new Policy Support Statement on the use of telemetry methods (which require the live capture of large carnivores) in conservation research and management.