2025-2028 NPCC Wildlife & Rural Crime Strategy
Yellow-legged Asian Hornet Week 1st - 7th September 2025
Operation EASTER launches for the 28th year
Bat Conservation Trust launch Halloween video to celebrate bats 🦇
Operation Badger re-launch for National Badger Day!
Craig Fellowes awarded MBE for services to wildlife
Operation EASTER ~ 27 years of stopping egg thieves
Man who abseiled down cliff to take peregrine falcon eggs jailed
Newport company fined for the demolition of Bat Roost
Cheshire man sentenced after admitting animal cruelty offences
2,114 seizures of endangered animals and timber in major international law enforcement operation
Natural England prosecutes developer for breaching Bat Mitigation Licence
Vale of Glamorgan man prosecuted for destroying valuable wildlife habitat
Wildlife detectives take part in new Forensics Training programme
PSNI investigate death of two white-tailed eagles
PSNI launch Operation SUBRISION to deter and detect rural and wildlife crime
Lewisham man convicted for illegally exporting ivory
Operation EASTER launched for 2023 - stopping egg thieves and egg collectors
Monmouthshire company fined for damaging an important Great Crested Newt habitat
02 Mar 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
New rural task force teams have been set up across Lancashire to target the issues that matter most to rural communities including machinery theft, rural, wildlife and heritage crime. A total of 20 officers have been funded through the police officer uplift programme. The teams will form part of the local policing teams that already […]
Read more → 02 Mar 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
A UN backed assessment of UK wildlife and forest crime legislation and enforcement has launched today, using the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) toolkit. The toolkit will review wildlife crime policing structures, including the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) and UK Border Force and efficacy […]
Read more → 28 Feb 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
A 63-year-old man has admitted taking almost 200 wild bird eggs including those belonging to endangered species. He had specialist equipment to collect eggs and took some from endangered species. Terence Potter, from Huddersfield, appeared at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 17th February 2021, charged with two counts of possessing an article capable of being […]
Read more → 25 Feb 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
Eighty alligator heads have been found at a Birmingham house during a police search. Investigators said they suspected the leathery trophies were illegally imported from abroad and then sold on online auction site eBay for a large profit. A 44-year-old man is being voluntarily interviewed after the discovery at an address in the Perry Barr […]
Read more → 25 Feb 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
POLICE SCOTLAND LAUNCH THIRD PHASE OF OPERATION WINGSPAN, AS PART OF YEAR-LONG CAMPAIGN TO TACKLE WILDLIFE CRIME IN SCOTLAND. Police Scotland’s yearlong focus on wildlife crime is now concentrating on bat crime. All ten species of bats found in Scotland are protected. It is an offence to capture, injure or kill a bat, disturb a […]
Read more → 18 Feb 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
Three men who were caught hare coursing in Cambridgeshire twice in a month have been handed three-year orders banning them from any similar activity. Levi Lee, 31, Edward Lee, 37 and John Lee, 64, all of Colliers Way, Arley, Coventry, were first spotted on 29 November, 2019. The trio were seen by a neighbouring farmer […]
Read more → 18 Feb 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
Three hare coursers arrested and seven others summoned to appear in court in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Wildlife & Rural Crime Sergeant Jenna Jones, leading the new Rural Task Force, said, “We are continuing to receive reports each weekend of groups of people and dogs on private land across the East Riding. “These reports […]
Read more → 11 Feb 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
RSPCA launch investigation following ‘horrific’ illegal shooting in Bedfordshire left buzzard being put down. A wild buzzard needed to be put down after it was illegally shot in Henlow, Bedfordshire. The RSPCA is investigating after an x-ray revealed the buzzard has been shot in the wing with an air rifle. The bird was rescued on […]
Read more → 09 Feb 2021
Posted by NWCU4
Humberside Police have set up a new dedicated unit focusing on tackling rural, wildlife and heritage crimes within the East Riding of Yorkshire. The Rural Task Force will be based at Driffield Police Station, ideally placed within the ‘Capital of the Wolds’ and will consist of four police constables and one sergeant. The team will […]
Read more → 06 Feb 2021
Posted by NWCU4 
Hampshire pair Luke Ockendon, 24, and Edward Goddard, 52, were caught poaching on farmland in Collingbourne Ducis, on Salisbury Plain, in December 2019. Appearing before Swindon Magistrates’ Court in January 2021, Goddard, of Winchester Street, Botley, and Ockendon, of Manor Park Drive, Yateley, pleaded guilty to hunting a wild animal with a dog on December […]
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