Like many others, we attended the UK Wildlife & Rural Crime Conference this year. In its 34th year, we joined hundreds of police officers and other NGOs involved in investigating and enforcing wildlife and rural crime.
This year was different for us. We are absolutely honoured to announce that we were awarded the ‘Wildlife Crime Partner Operation of the Year’ accolade for the partnership project we ran with the RSPCA and Thames Valley Police.
We listened to you, the public, about your negative experiences when reporting wildlife crime to the police. We heard your stories of no knowledge, we listened to your stories of lack of willingness to log the incident and we heard your stories of incidents hitting a brick wall at the first point of contact. Police officers on the ground were as frustrated as you, unable to get incident details without the right first point of contact action.
As many wonderful projects start, on a wintry afternoon in December 2021 at a country pub in York, I met with the wonderful Geoff Edmonds, RSPCA Wildlife coordinator and together we decided to take on the challenge of conquering the first point of contact in policing. With the trust of CI Kevin Kelly at the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU), we planned our Force Control Room (FCR) wildlife crime training video.
The content aligned directly with the NWCU’s priority areas of hare coursing, badger crime, bat crime, bird of prey crime and CITES. Plus we agreed that the addition of fox hunting was absolutely vital.
With the support of Thames Valley Police’s Contact Management Rural Crime Team Specialist, Alison Ashbolt, we created an engaging and informative training package.
3,000 police staff now better equipped to tackle wildlife crime!
We jointly funded the project with the NWCU and created the video, which, since we launched to forces across the country in August 2023, has now been watched over 3000 times. Yes, that’s 3000 police staff now better equipped to help the fight against wildlife crime. That’s 3000 police staff now knowledgeable enough to get the correct officers to the right place to deal with the cruelty that is wildlife crime.
So, on behalf of us at Naturewatch Foundation and the wildlife of the UK, thank you to our supporters who so generously donate to keep our work going. Your donations have directly impacted wildlife in the UK and made the difference in getting it right the first time.
Protecting wildlife is at the core of what we do. With our supporters alongside, we can do so many more award-winning projects.
To read more about our work or ways to get involved please visit our wildlife crime pages.
Photograph credit: D. Kingham.
