How effective and selective is traditional Red Fox snaring?

We followed a red fox culling campaign that employed traditional cable snares to control numbers in a hunting estate in the Serranía de Ronda (Andalusia, southern Spain). We assessed abundance and presence of carnivore species within the area where fox culling took place by means of faecal counts within regularly walked paths. Twenty animals of four different taxa were snared during 238 nights in 36 locations. Through interviews with informed locals we established there were eight carnivore species present in the study area. Capture efficiency was 1.52 foxes per 1,000 trap-nights; the ISO-selectivity was 65% and the negative specific selectivity 50%. Despite daily checks of snares, there was a very high mortality (>80%) of target and non-target species. Moreover, a large proportion of the animals were caught by the neck. Our results suggest that this traditional method (snares without stops) of predator control should not be used.