Wildlife Crime

Chair: Dominic Dyer, Born Free
Vice-Chair: Craig Fellowes, Badger Trust
Link: Matt Browne, Head of Policy & Advocacy 

Update from the Group

Last updated 03.07.23. For more info contact matt@wcl.org.uk 

Wildlife crime inflicts avoidable suffering on wild animals, hinders nature's recovery and poses a threat to people. 

However, most wildlife crimes in England and Wales are not centrally recorded and the legislation enabling the prosecution of wildlife criminals is antiquated. The Wildlife Crime Group works to address these barriers to tackling wildlife crime, and to support the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in increasing wildlife crime convictions.   

Our annual reports show the scale of wildlife crime in England and Wales, and call on the Government to ensure this crime is recorded and tackled effectively.

The Group published their latest annual wildlife crime report in November 2022. Previous wildlife crime reports can be found here. 

Members of the Wildlife Crime Group wrote to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in January 2023 to raise concerns about the cancellation of a Termination of the Memorandum of Understanding Between the League Against Cruel Sports and the MoD. The response from the MoD received on 20.02.23 (with contact details removed) can be found here. A letter of reply from Link members can be found here.