Bird of Prey Crime

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/24/002116/N

 Version Date: 04/07/2024

I am conducting research into bird of prey crime in England and Wales and would like to request the number of investigations your force carried out with regards to bird of prey (raptor) crime from 2019 to 2023?

A number for each year will be sufficient.

The Performance & Analysis Department have provided the following information.

Identifying bird of prey related ‘crimes’ is difficult as they are non-notifiable offences so not recorded as crimes as such so the data has been obtained from identifying recorded reports against the specific offence types relating to wild birds (killed/injured/nest disturbance/theft) as well as any arrests against these offences. A keyword search for ‘bird of prey’ has identified some deaths of birds of prey that have been looked into by police.

The results are as follows for 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2023:

• 2019 – 0
• 2020 – 0
• 2021 – 13
• 2022 – 1
• 2023 – 1