2006
Early Day Motion No. 1990 - Wildlife Crime not given sufficient priority. Tabled by Joan Walley MP, on behalf of Naturewatch. Highest rated animal welfare EDM in session. Attracted considerable cross-party support.
Wording of EDM:
That this House is concerned that wildlife crime is not being given sufficient priority, as was revealed in the recent Naturewatch survey of police wildlife crime officers; notes that police believe that there are strong connections between some types of wildlife crime, like badger baiting and poaching, and other forms of crime; further notes that wildlife crime is perceived to be `high yield, low risk'; and urges the Government to increase the priority given to tackling wildlife crime forthwith.
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2005
The Government's do-nothing response to the Select Committee's Wildlife Crime Report fails wildlife - and themselves
Naturewatch had been excited by the Env
ironment Audit Committee's report on wildlife crime, providing independent approval of several of our key recommendations, so we awaited the Government's response with much hope but some dread. While they agreed on most of the principles, they took issue with anything that required action, and did little more than re-state curent Government policy. For a party rapidly losing its reputation as being advocates of animal welfare, this was rather careless - especially with a General Election looming.
Naturewatch's Survey to Police Wildlife Crime Officers
We sent a survey to Police Wildlife Crime Officers to the 51 geographical police forces of Great Britain and received returns from 47 forces (a response rate of over 90%!).
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2004
We met with DEFRA to discuss the serious weaknesses in the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 and our suggested amendments to strengthen enforcement. Our main concerns with the Act are that at present:
- Offences under the Protection of BadgersAct are not supported by a power of arrest which effectively prevents the police from arresting suspects at the scene of the crime and are therefore unable to take them for questioning - also have no powers to access property and land;
- There is no provision for the obtaining of search warrants making it virtually impossible to be proactive against suspects within a rural environment;
- Offences under the Act have to be commenced within six months of an offence taking place when often offences are not detected until the time limit has already expired.
Wildlife Crime Report - Not pie in the sky!
The Environment Audit Committee published its long-awaited report and its conclusions and recommendations are refreshingly direct. They effectively provide a ringing endorsement of the issues raised by Naturewatch. In brief, the committee start by saying that wildlife crime has not been adequately defined and call on the Government to re-state its commitment to it.
They state: We see this refusal to accept wildlife crime as an issue deserving of committed police resources as especially short-sighted given the many links made between wildlife crime and serious and organised crime. [Rec. 4]
Wildlife crime must be classified as recordable by the Home Office so that police forces across England and Wales know that sufficient priority needs to be given to tackling wildlife crime and so that they can allocate the necessary resources to this work. We accept that within this classification system there will probably need to be some form of grading of wildlife crimes to reflect the level of gravity of each crime. [Rec. 5]
This is almost exactly what Naturewatch is campaigning for. The committee has much to say about the resources allocated to the police and their ability to enforce the legislation. They state: The absence of any clear, national view of the scale of wildlife crime has a direct impact on the ability of those charged with enforcing current legislation. If the scale and nature of the problem is not known it is unlikely that the correct level of resources can ever be allocated to deal with it. [Rec. 26]
We believe that there must be at least one full-time Wildlife Crime Officer for each Police force. These officers must be fully trained in intelligence gathering. [Rec. 27]
They are also very critical of the Home Office, saying: The role of the Home Office has been shown to be absolutely crucial in the fight against wildlife crime but their commitment has been sadly lacking. The Home Office must re-engage with wildlife crime. [Rec. 34]
They conclude: We believe that the link between wildlife crime and other serious crimes, the clear and growing involvement of organised crime, and the increased reliance on the internet for illegal trade in protected species makes the argument for spending time and resources on this area of crime compelling. [Rec. 41] |
1996
How it all began - Launch of Badger Project in West Wales
Naturewatch's involvement started with badgers in 1996 when members of a Welsh badger group contacted the organisation. Naturewatch paid for surveillance equipment that enabled the badger group to investigate suspected badger diggers with the aim of catching them red-handed at their evil work. These men are well aware of the potential of being followed which means a good measure of luck is needed to catch them on a badger sett. Naturewatch continued to fund surveillance activity for the group for a number of years with extremely pleasing results along the way.
Although the Badgers Act 1992 offers protection on paper, it does very little to stop the hard core of highly organised thugs who delight in persecuting badgers in West Wales where the so-called 'sport' is rife. It is a notoriously difficult and very time-consuming operation, often without success for numerous reasons. Equally difficult is achieving a successful prosecution. Unfortunately, many police forces do not view badger cruelty as important which means a lack of co-operation exists in many areas.
During discussions between Dyfed-Powys Police, Nick Ainger MP, Badger Groups, RSPCA and Naturewatch to encourage a proactive approach to tackling wildlife crime, in particular badger digging and baiting, it became clear that this issue was viewed as low priority by many forces. Following various consultations, it was felt that the overriding reason for this apparent 'laid back' approach was due to the crimes not being 'notifiable offences'. This means that badger crime is not included in official crime statistics issued by the Home Office.
In the words of a Chief Constable: "As with any other public service organisation, what gets measured gets done. If you judge a senior officer on how well they are meeting priorities then obviously that is what will be focused on."
Additional Information
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Many celebrities have expressed their support for our Badger Campaign including: Richard Adams, Virginia McKenna, Chris Packham, Jilly Cooper, Judi Dench, Pollyanna Pickering, Lorraine Kelly, Roy Noble, David Bellamy, Roy Hattersley, Joan Plowright, Nerys Hughes, Benjamin Zephaniah, Anthea Turner, Alexandra Bastedo, Carla Lane, Piers Morgan, Harry Hill, John Humphrys, Jonathon Morris, Wendy Turner-Webster, John Hurt, Colin Baker, Jean Boht, Stephanie Cole, Alexei Sayle, Julian Clary and Sharron Davies.
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Click here to view Badger Crime Image Gallery - WARNING - these images may shock but if the law on badger protection was working they would never have been taken! Please view with caution.
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