Wildlife Crime in Scotland 2023

National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU)

The NWCU is a police intelligence unit providing operational support to law enforcement. All intelligence relating to wildlife crime in Scotland is gathered by the NWCU and researched on a weekly basis to identify emerging trends and prepare tactical and strategic analysis. For example, intelligence and analytical support continued to be provided by NWCU for Operation Tantallon - an operation relating to the theft of peregrine falcons from the wild.

Figure 13 provides a summary of wildlife crime intelligence logs, broken down by relevant keywords, and this illustrates the spread of wildlife crime intelligence dealt with by Police Scotland and the NWCU. There were 261 intelligence logs. Of these, aside from the general ‘Other’ wildlife category, the most frequent keywords are ‘Hare’ (44; 17%), ‘Fish’ (38; 15%) and ‘Deer’ (32; 12%).

The most common specific species recorded in NWCU intelligence logs are Hare, Fish and Deer.
Figure 13: NWCU intelligence logs by species keyword

It should be noted that an intelligence log is not a detected crime but a tool for Police to use to establish a bigger picture of what is happening in a given area. A single incident may generate a number of pieces of intelligence. Intelligence logs cannot be used to (a) directly compare year on year or (b) comment on long term trends, as they are reviewed on a yearly basis and deleted if grounds for inclusion for policing purposes no longer exist. As a result, the number of intelligence logs for any given year decreases over time.

Further detail: including the most frequent key words for earlier years, is provided in Tables 31 and 32 of the Tables supporting document.