The problem

Many UK wildlife crimes occur under a veil of secrecy, with overstretched police forces to investigate and prosecute them. Poisoning, trapping, and being set upon by dogs are just some of the thousands of largely hidden and horrific acts of crime and cruelty inflicted on UK wild animals, including badgers, hares, bats and birds of prey.

To shine a spotlight on the problem, IFAW has now published a second piece of research —System set to fail – prosecuting wildlife crime— that takes a deeper dive into why many crimes do not lead to prosecutions in court. This research, builds on the findings of the first report —Make wildlife matter— making the case that change is urgently needed.

The solution

We are calling on the government to protect our precious wildlife by introducing the following measures:

• Making wildlife crime a ‘notifiable’ offence.

• Mandatory early legal training in wildlife crime.

• Mandatory sentencing and prosecution guidelines.

• Better guidance and support on the evidence needed for wildlife crime prosecutions.

• Greater multi-agency collaboration.

• Raised awareness of wildlife crime across forces.

• Commitment to the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) funding from the government.

By making these offences notifiable, the detection and prosecution of key wildlife crimes can be enhanced, and more criminal offenders brought to justice.

Please help us reach our goal of 100k signers by 30 October, to get this action heard by the UK government. We want to reflect the strength of feeling on this when alongside our partners we call on the Home Office to make wildlife crimes notifiable. We need these crimes to be recorded in national statistics, to truly make wildlife matter!