What you can do about wildlife crime

The first thing to work out is whether the thing you’ve seen or heard about is a crime.

There are other crimes involving plants and animals, covered in rural crime and environment crime.

Most forces have at least one wildlife crime officer and many have dedicated units. We also work with partner agencies to investigate, prevent and tackle wildlife crime.

If you think a crime has happened:

don’t disturb the scene
don’t touch or remove dead animals or birds (in the case of some protected species, if you take possession of the dead animal you could be committing an offence)
record as many details as you can; date, time, location, details of anyone involved
if possible, take photos or video of the scene
write down any registration numbers of any vehicles involved
don’t put yourself at risk and don’t approach anyone, contact us

Report it

If you think a wildlife crime is being committed then contact us by reporting a crime online.

If a crime is happening or someone is in danger, call 999. If you have a hearing or speech impairment, use our textphone service 18000 or text us on 999 if you’ve pre-registered with the emergencySMS service.

We’d rather you contacted us and we investigate, than not hear from you.

You can also report wildlife crime anonymously to Crimestoppers by calling 0800 555 111.