Wildlife crime laws need changing, say MPs
The Environmental Audit Committee, a cross-party government watchdog, has released a report stating wildlife protection laws are inconsistently applied in UK courts.
The report describes the laws as fractured, adding that wildlife legislation has become too complex for specialist enforcement officers to even implement it effectively.
The report highlights bird of prey poisonings, in which rogue gamekeepers use carbofuran, and other chemicals that have no legal use. As a result, hundreds of birds of prey die deliberately each year.
A DEFRA spokesperson has said that possession of carbofuran, which is said to be the chemical responsible for over half of bird of prey poisonings, has been banned, but the committee's MPs say it has not.
Concerns that wildlife law offenders are being neither punished nor deterred is key.
Committee Chair, Joan Walley MP, said: “Wildlife protection law in the UK is in a mess after being patched up too many times in an effort to keep pace with offending. The law needs to be consolidated and the courts need to be given clear sentencing guidelines.
“The Government needs to back up the police on the front-line against wildlife crime.”
Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
