Wildlife Crime in Scotland 2022

SASA Chemistry Branch

The Chemistry Branch at SASA investigates suspected animal poisoning incidents as part of the  Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme. SASA provides data on the total number of incidents investigated, the number of those incidents attributed to pesticides and the number of incidents considered to be abuse. Pesticide use is considered to be abuse where it is used in breach of authorisation conditions with the deliberate intent of harming wildlife or other animals.

Figure 9: The number of incidents investigated has remained similar in recent years but abuse incidents have decreased.

Suspected animal poisoning incidents investigated by SASA Chemistry Branch: 2017-18 to 2021-22

From Figure 9 it can be seen that the number of incidents investigated has remained broadly similar in recent years (217 in 2021-22 is only slightly above the five year average of 199), but the number of abuse incidents has dropped markedly from 20 (9%) in 2019-20 to only 3 (1%) in 2021-22.

Within the abuse incidents, it is of particular note that the number of abuse incidents involving birds of prey has fallen from 9 in 2019-20 to 1 in 2021-22, as shown in Figure 10, below. Looking at the five year period from 2017-18 to 2021-22, there have been 22 incidents (involving 24 birds) investigated by SASA where birds of prey had been poisoned, with the most common species being red kite (15 birds) and buzzard (6 birds).

Further detail: of categories of incident investigated by SASA (and the outcomes) is provided in tables 14 and 15 of the Tables supporting document.

Figure 10: There were a total of 22 incidents of birds of prey poisonings over the period 2017-18 to 2021-22.

Bird of prey poisonings 2017-18 to 2021-22