Raptor Persecution

The persecution of raptors, or birds of prey, is the most high-profile type of wildlife crime in Scotland and it can have a serious impact on the populations of some raptor species at local, regional or (if carried out more widely) national level.

There were 22 raptor persecution offences recorded in 2022-23.
Figure 20: Recorded raptor persecution offences 2018-19 to 2022-23.

Figure 20 shows that raptor persecution offences increased from 11 in 2020-21 to 24 in 2021-22. Of the offences in 2021-22, 15 out of 24 were related to offences against peregrine falcons, reported in the Lothians and Scottish Borders police division and these reflect the impact of Operation Tantallon which targeted offences against wild peregrine falcons (and also resulted in other crimes recorded as CITES offences, discussed earlier in this report). The impact of Operation Tantallon continues into 2022-23, when 12 out of 22 raptor persecution offences were recorded in the Lothians and Scottish Borders against peregrine falcons.

Offences over the 5-year period covered a range of crime types including poisoning (24 offences), shooting (21 offences), trapping (10 offences), disturbance (5 offences) and egg theft (4 offences). There were 34 recorded crimes over the same period in a broad “other” category, which includes recorded crimes where insufficient information was available to classify them more specifically.

Further detail: on raptor offences by target species, police division, type of offence and time of year is included in Tables 44 to 46 of the Tables supporting document.