Annual wildlife crime report reveals a worrying trend in cyber-enabled badger crime

Badger Trust Staff Team
Nov 29, 2022
3 min read

The latest report highlights the issue of criminals using the internet to promote horrific badger baiting crimes.

Today marks the launch of the ‘Wildlife Crime in 2021’ report. The annual report, created by Wildlife and Countryside Link and Wales Environment Link with input from member organisations including Badger Trust, confirms a worrying connection between cyber-enabled crime and badger persecution.

Badger baiting images and videos are ‘virtual trophies’

The report shows that 526 incidents of badger crime were reported to Badger Trust in 2021, including badger baiting. The report details how young adults and teenagers use the internet to promote badger baiting with dogs, a cruel and illegal blood sport. Not only do gangs use social media platforms such as TikTok and Facebook to organise badger baiting and recruit more young members, but sharing bloody and violent footage gains them online notoriety. Essentially, badger baiting images and videos are trending online, used as virtual trophies of illegal badger persecution.

Badger baiters are also well known for their links to other criminal activities, including crimes against humans such as theft and domestic violence. Using social media for gang recruitment via badger baiting puts young people at risk of being exposed to and involved in other criminal activities.

Government ‘strips back’ Online Safety Bill proposals

The 'Wildlife Crime in 2021' report comes at the same time that the government has stripped back proposals for the Online Safety Bill, which seeks to protect young people from harmful online content. Badger Trust has been campaigning for animal welfare (specifically badger baiting) to be included in the bill to protect wildlife and young people from illegal and harmful activities.

Overall, the annual wildlife crime report highlights the need for badger crime, including badger baiting, to be a notifiable offence. Under current protections, police do not enter reported badger crimes into a national database. Therefore, it is currently not possible for police to monitor regional and national badger crime statistics, despite the badger being a legally protected species.

Crime monitoring largely falls to organisations such as Badger Trust, which has an online reporting centre and a specialist Wildlife Crime Officer. However, Badger Trust warns that 526 reported badger persecution cases in 2021 are just the tip of the iceberg.

Make reported badger crime a notifiable offence

Badger Trust is calling on the government to make badger crimes notifiable, a key message of the PBA30 campaign launched this year on the 30th anniversary of the Protection of Badgers Act. Together we call on the government to:

Extend the maximum sentence for convictions under the Protection of Badgers Act (1992) from six months to five years, bringing it into line with Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021. This means offenders would be faced with a five-year sentence for the abuse of a badger, in the same way as they would for the abuse of a dog used in the same crime. Tougher sentencing would act as a deterrent to badger baiting.
Make badger persecution notifiable to the Home Office so that the real level of crime can be accurately assessed, reported on, and tackled. At present, wildlife crimes are not recorded in this way and there are no official national statistics. Increasing sentencing would, by default, make a crime under the Protection of Badgers Act (1992) a notifiable offence.

Further information:

Read ‘Wildlife Crime in 2021: A report on the scale of wildlife crime in England and Wales’:

The annual wildlife crime report ‘Wildlife Crime in 2021’ is produced by Wildlife and Countryside Link and Wales Environment Link members. The report compiles statistics, insight and commentary from key wildlife organisations and covers a range of flora and fauna.

The report reveals that wildlife crime prosecution remains low and calls for more training for specialist prosecutors and higher availability of expert witnesses.

The report also calls for wildlife crime to be made a notifiable offence. Statistics will then be recorded at a national level to help police forces identify crime hotspots and strategically plan operations.