A new independent volunteer-led campaign group has been formed by five prominent birders and wildlife campaigners in an effort to encourage more birders to become actively involved in reporting wildlife crime.
This seems such an obvious initiative, given, as they say:
- Every day, thousands of birders go into the field looking for birds;
- Birders are skilled and alert observers;
- Birders actively seek out areas that the general public often don’t visit;
- Birders use powerful optics and many carry either a DSLR camera or a smartphone with a built-in camera.
The new group, Birders Against Wildlife Crime (BAWC) plan to launch a website within a few weeks and will provide material on how to recognise a wildlife crime, how to record it so that the chances of a prosecution are increased, and how to report the crime. They’re also planning events, training courses and other initiatives in the fight-back against the wildlife criminals.
For some initial information about BAWC see here, and you can also follow them on Twitter (@birdersagainst) and Facebook.
Raptor Persecution UK 
I wish them the best of luck..although they should be careful who they report crimes too, I hope they are getting the best advice on that!…
However, nothing beats this Blog, which is essential in this fight….up to date recording of crimes and the publicity [or lack of it!] over court cases is essential, when the landowning/shooting/gamekeeping community try hard to repress such factual information..
Readers, imagine how few of these crimes you would know about without this blog..?
Well done raptorpersecutionscotland…as always.
That’s very kind of you, Dave, thanks.
We think BWAC will bring something different to the table (certainly a wider remit than ours) and they are well positioned to communicate effectively with a target audience that we’ve mostly been missing.
The more eyes out there the better! Project Raptor wishes you all best. We have almost thirty years field investigations experience and so if we can be of any assistance then please let us know. We have an ‘eagle eye’ volunteer training day coming up shortly and so if you would like to know more then please tweet us @projectraptor1 for more info. Based on our experience in the field and really repeating Dave Dick’s sentiments, coming across crimes against raptors is difficult enough and so it is vital that any incidents that are discovered are reported to the correct people for the best possible outcome.