Conservation campaign group Wild Justice has provided an update on how its Raptor Forensics Fund has helped UK police forces investigate suspected crimes against birds of prey.
The fund was established in 2020 to cover the costs of early-stage investigations where there is a suspicion of a crime but insufficient evidence to meet the criteria required to submit a carcass for tests in a Government-funded lab.
Police officers have immediate access to the fund to prevent any delay in progressing a case and typically it covers costs such as x-rays and post-mortems. If a crime is then confirmed, officers can apply for further funds to cover costs such as DNA work or other specialist work. If a case results in a conviction, an application is made to the court to recover the costs and these are returned to the forensic fund.
The fund is administered by the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) and is open to any regional or national statutory agency in the UK. For further details please visit the PAW Forensic Working Group website here.
Additional funding support has been provided by The Northern England Raptor Forum, Tayside & Fife Raptor Study Group, Devon Birds, Rare Bird Alert and a number of individuals who wish to remain anonymous.
Since being established in 2020, the fund has supported 68 police investigations and has been used to pay for 43 post mortems, 29 x-rays, one CT scan and two DNA profilings.
Some of those 68 investigations have now ended, either because, for example, there wasn’t any evidence of criminality, or there was some evidence but it was insufficient to meet the criminal threshold, or because no suspects were identified, or because the carcass tested positive for avian influenza which prevented any further analysis. Some investigations are on-going.
Eight investigations have so far resulted in prosecutions and subsequent convictions. Seven of the eight convictions involved gamekeepers on Pheasant shoots. You can read the details here.
Raptor Persecution UK 
A pleasure to donate to such a cause to rid this country of despoilers of wildlife.
While very grateful to Wild Justice for allocating funds to this, neither they nor other groups should have to. It should be funded by the ‘proceeds of crime’ act by which police groups have amassed a fortune. Does this mean that not enough funding is being allocated to wildlife crime in the first place?
In the past (in my personal opinion) at least one north of England county police force has used the lack of funding or “difficult decision about resourcing priorities in challenging economic times” sort of line as a reason / excuse why they didn’t get corpses tested and therefore didn’t have the evidence needed to pursue an investigation. When at heart they were basically disinclined to investigate these types of crimes in the first place.
You’re right, Tim, in an ideal world everything would be properly funded. But pretty much every area of public service is underfunded, had budgets slashed etc, and wildlife crime is way down the list of priorities. It’s hard to make a case for more funding because wildlife crimes still aren’t ‘notifiable’, so there isn’t any central record of how much wildlife crime goes on, which makes it virtually impossible for police forces/PCCs to justify additional funding. It’s catch 22. Without the raptor forensic fund a lot of these investigations would simply fall by the wayside.
In addition to the above, a serving cop tells me that police at the sharp end know they are underfunded and short of numbers. Also recruitment policy has changed for the worse, and experience is spread thinly *sergeant after five years*. Funding like this can influence decisions and support investigations.
Will donate as soon as I’ve written this. What a great idea.
As ever – superb work by Wild Justice.