From Crisis to Care: What It Takes to Save a Snared Animal

By the time the zebra was found, the damage was already done. When a call came in about a zebra possibly caught in a snare, the team rushed to the site. A potential snaring case is always an emergency. Once the zebra was located, the situation was clear. The animal was still on its feet, a tight loop of metal wire constricted tightly around its leg. Every step forced it deeper into the wound.

It is unknown how long this zebra had spent in the snare, some animals spend days trapped before they are found, while some are never found. Days spent with wire cutting into tissue and muscle, driving infection and making the animal susceptible to predation and starvation. But this zebra was still alive. When a snared animal is found alive, the fight for survival begins. Releasing the animal from the snare is only the first step – and survival is far from guaranteed.

Across many parts of Africa, wire snares – loops of metal wire set out to capture bushmeat – remain one of the most common and devastating threats to wildlife. Snares are indiscriminate in the animals they capture. Anything that steps in the snare and triggers it will be caught. A snare intended for an antelope may instead capture a zebra, a giraffe or a lion. One zebra treated recently in the greater Kruger area illustrates just what happens between finding a snared animal and giving it a chance of survival.

To treat the animal safely, the veterinary team first has to reach the animal. This can be extremely complicated depending on the terrain and weather conditions, often in areas that take hours to reach – even in the best of conditions.

Once located, the zebra has to be immobilised by a veterinarian. Darting an animal typically startles it. In the case of a snared animal, that panic can drive the wire deeper into tissue. The zebra is darted from a distance. The following stage is critical. Wildlife anaesthesia is never routine, and even before treatment begins, the team must work quickly to ensure the animal is positioned safely and monitored closely. Once the zebra was down, attention shifted immediately to its breathing, temperature, and circulation. Only once the animal was stable could the team focus fully on the wound.

Cutting the wire is only the beginning

Once the zebra is immobilised, the extent of the injury becomes visible. The snare is carefully cut away, and removed from the wound where it is embedded. The underlying damage becomes instantly visible. Tissue is swollen and infected. If the animal is found any later, tissue can become nectrotic. Sometimes the wire can compromise blood flow to the limb, leading to ischemia and severe tissue damage. Muscles, tendons, and nerves may already be affected, and in some cases the wound may be complicated by flystrike (myiasis) if the animal has been trapped for an extended period.

Veterinarians must assess circulation to the affected limb, the depth of the wound, and whether the surrounding tissue is still viable. They must also monitor the animal’s vital parameters throughout the procedure. Wildlife anaesthesia carries its own risks, particularly in stressed animals, and prolonged restraint can lead to complications such as capture myopathy - a potentially fatal condition triggered by extreme stress and muscle damage.

Field treatment requires a balance of speed and precision. The team must remove the snare, stabilise the injury, clean and treat the wound, and administer medication to control infection and pain, all while keeping anaesthesia time as short as possible. In the worst cases, the injury is so severe that survival in the wild is no longer possible – the animal must be euthanised. In others, as with this zebra, timely intervention gives the animal a chance to recover.

For this zebra, treatment continued after the wire was removed. The wound had to be assessed, cleaned and disinfected. The zebra showed no signs of necrosis. The injury was severe, but still treatable. Medication was administered to reduce infection, pain, and inflammation. This part is often invisible in discussions around snaring. Rescue is not simply about freeing the animal, it is about stabilising a body that has already been through prolonged trauma. This zebra was lucky – although the snare had caused deep tissue damage, it is a manageable snaring case on the spectrum of what snares frequently cause.

The moment that matters the most

After treatment, the team prepares the zebra for recovery. Anaesthetic drugs are reversed, and the animal is closely monitored as it begins to wake. This stage is crucial, as a poor recovery can undo everything. The zebra must be able to regain its footing, orient itself, and move away safely. The team holds their breath. The zebra steadies itself, and with a swift motion, stands on its feet. When it finally stood, the intervention had done what it could: the wire was gone, the wound was treated, and the zebra had been given a chance.

A compromised limb on a 300kg animal is still a serious injury. It leaves the zebra vulnerable to predators and poachers. But at least for now, it has escaped the slow death of a snare. This is what wildlife veterinary care often comes down to. Not certainty, but chance. A chance that would not have existed without the team that found the animal, the training required to immobilise it safely, and the equipment and medicine needed to treat it in the field.

A larger pattern

For every zebra, antelope, or lion that is found and treated in time, many others are not. That is what makes snaring so difficult for conservation teams to combat. Each case is immediate and urgent, but each case is also part of a much larger pattern. The animal in front of the veterinarian is one patient, but the wire around its leg is evidence of a wider problem that cannot be solved through treatment alone.

Across southern and East Africa, the full scale of snaring is difficult to measure precisely, partly because so much of it goes undetected, but the available numbers are still stark. In the Greater Kruger landscape, one study recorded 671 snares during patrols over just one year, with 80% of them still active when found. SANParks has also reported that thousands of snares are removed from Kruger National Park each year. More broadly, a 2024 South African snaring symposium involving government, SANParks, and conservation groups described snaring as occurring at unsustainable rates across all provinces and diverse landscapes, with species such as lion, leopard, and hyena frequently killed as by-catch in snares originally set for bushmeat.

So why does it continue, and will it ever end?

Part of the answer is that snaring is not driven by a single cause. Across African savannas, snares are the most common method used by bushmeat hunters, in part because they are cheap, silent, and easy to conceal.

The broader bushmeat trade is driven by a mix of poverty, food insecurity, human encroachment into wildlife areas, commercial demand, and weak legal regulation and enforcement. That means snaring cannot be solved through veterinary rescue or anti-poaching patrols alone. Conservation agencies are increasingly emphasizing that long-term progress depends on community involvement, alternative livelihoods, and solutions shaped with, not just imposed on, people living alongside wildlife. In that sense, snaring may never disappear entirely, but its scale can be reduced if the social and economic pressures behind it are addressed as seriously as the wire itself.

For rangers and veterinarians working on the frontlines, the reality is that injured animals will continue to be found. Until the root causes of snaring are fully addressed, the ability to respond quickly and effectively remains critical. That means training more wildlife veterinarians, equipping field teams with the skills and tools to immobilise and treat injured animals, and strengthening the networks that make rapid intervention possible. Because when a snared animal is discovered alive, its survival often depends on whether the right people, with the right training, are able to reach it in time. Often, that effort ends with something deceptively simple: an injured animal rising to its feet, steadying itself, and disappearing back into the bush. The wire is gone. The wound is treated. For one animal, at least, the crisis has been interrupted.

Written by Jasmin Kinnunen

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