Wildlife Crimes

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/26/4265

Version Date: 23/02/2026

The Performance Analysis Department has provided the following information:

To obtain the below data, searches were undertaken on Niche for wildlife crimes/ HO Codes where animals were involved. The occurrences were then reviewed to determine the animal involved, and occurrences were removed which were not in relation to animals/wildlife.

Please note that wildlife crimes are non-notifiable offences, so they are not recorded as crimes and as such there are no results after 2021.

An alternate search method would be utilising the Occurrence type field and search for occurrences with the type of “PS - Animals/Wildlife”, however we will still have the same issue of the offences will not be recorded as crimes and this method will most likely pull through occurrences related to domestic animals and as well as wildlife.

Data prior to May 2015 is no longer held.

Could you please provide the following data for the period 2000-2024:

The total number of wildlife crimes reported to your force.

Details of the protected species groups involved in the cases that resulted in prosecution (e.g., birds, mammals, reptiles/amphibians, plants, etc.).

Please Note: Prosecution data is held by the courts and not the Police

The table below shows the animal involved for offences with an outcome of:

• Charged
• Summonsed/postal requisition
• Alternate offence summonsed/postal requisition