The little-known wildlife crimes that can get you arrested

Today is the third time Daniel Lingham, 71, has been sentenced for stealing thousands of wild bird eggs from near his Norfolk home. Other wildlife crimes include badger 'baiting', removing bats from their roosts, and swiping rare mussels from rivers.

Lara Keay

News reporter

Friday 3 May 2024 13:48, UK

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Did you know stealing a wild bird egg is a criminal offence?

"Possessing an egg (or its parts) of a wild bird" is illegal under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Today Daniel Lingham, 71, has avoided an immediate prison sentence despite stealing thousands of them - after he was previously jailed twice for similar offences.

He was caught on a wildlife trap camera at Holt Lowes nature reserve in Norfolk in June 2023 before a police raid of his home the following month revealed he had taken almost 3,000.

Alongside crimes against birds, their nests, or eggs, other wildlife crimes include badger 'baiting', damaging bat roosts, over-fishing, and removing rare mussels from rivers.

But despite several laws making wildlife exploitation in its various forms illegal, prosecutions often fail, there are few sentencing guidelines, and no national database of crimes committed.

Meanwhile, experts argue, wildlife is killed or injured, damage is done to our environment and economy, and potential warning signs of more serious crimes are missed.

So what is wildlife crime - and why do cases collapse?

Most crimes against wild animals, birds, and plants come under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, but there are also more species-specific laws such as the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, Hunting Act 2004, and Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996.

Separate legislation deals with animal cruelty, with the RSCPA often pursuing its own private prosecutions for those cases.

The recent passing of the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 increased maximum prison sentences from six months to five years, resulting in a number of high-profile cases since.

Most police forces have a dedicated wildlife crime officer with specialist training, but scarce resources mean they often lean on the National Wildlife Crime Unit and specialist voluntary organisations for help with investigations.

Wildlife crimes are 'non-notifiable', which means forces are not obliged to record them for statistical purposes, as they are for most other offences.

The government says this is because they "often take place far from human eyes in remote locations", which makes it difficult to identify suspects and gather enough evidence for prosecution.

Wildlife crime priorities

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has set out seven priority offences for wildlife crime. They are:

Badger persecution

It is illegal to interfere with or block a badger's home or 'sett'. Most often they are dug up and their dwellers forced out by either dazzling them with a bright light ('lamping'), or using dogs to chase them. Badger baiting is a centuries-old blood sport, whereby small dogs such as terriers or lurchers seek badgers out of their setts before fighting and killing them.

Bat persecution

Bats and their homes are legally protected, so disturbing or removing them is an offence. If bats roost in your roof, you need to obtain a special 'bat mitigation licence' from Natural England to be allowed to disturb them. They are hugely important to our ecosystem. By feeding on insects, bats both control the population and act as a marker for biodiversity.

Trade of endangered species

The Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) sets out which endangered animals and plants have protected status. It is illegal to remove any of them from their natural habitat, possess, or sell them. Currently, the top priorities are European eels, birds of prey, ivory, medicinal and health products, reptiles, rhino horns, and timber.

Freshwater pearl mussel offences

These rare mussels are only found in rivers in Scotland and small parts of England. They can live for more than 130 years but are extremely sensitive to water pollution and have been illegally farmed for years. It is illegal to damage or destroy their habitat or to take, injure or kill them.

Poaching

Fox, deer, and hare hunting are all illegal under the Hunting Act 2004. Poaching offences also cover illegal fishing - when anglers do not obtain a licence or remove protected fish from lakes and rivers without returning them.

Bird persecution

Birds of prey are often targeted for trying to kill or eat farm animals or crops. Their eggs are also bred and traded illegally. It is an offence to target, poison, or kill them, with a particular focus on golden eagles, goshawks, hen harriers, peregrines, red kites, and white-tailed eagles. Disturbing or taking their eggs or chicks is also illegal.

Cyber-enabled wildlife crime

Social media is often used to promote wildlife crime and recruit people to take part in it. Endangered plants and animals are also traded illegally online.

Wildlife Countryside Link, a coalition of 83 environmental organisations, has a wildlife crime working group. Matt Browne is its head of policy and advocacy.

He says without a national database, patterns in offending are near impossible to spot, making it harder to prevent crimes from happening.

"Cases also seem to run into problems at the prosecution stage," Mr Browne tells Sky News. "It's a very specific type of crime and if you're not experienced you can trip up very quickly.

"It happens again and again that people are prosecuted for say, a breach of the Hunting Act, and tend to be fairly well off so bring in top-level barristers… they're up against a junior prosecutor who has been put on the case the week before and it collapses."

An RSPB report showed that prosecution rates for crimes against birds and other wildlife were lower than 4% in 2022.

Cases can sometimes fail because of outside political pressure, he adds.

In 2022 Conservative MP Chris Loder said police should not have investigated the suspicious death of a white-tailed eagle in his West Dorset constituency and police took no further action.

Mr Browne adds that with a lack of clear sentencing guidelines, magistrates often err on the side of caution, making prison terms "extremely unlikely".

Notable cases of wildlife crime

The 'feather thief'

Edwin Rist, an American music student, broke into Tring Zoological Museum in Hertfordshire to steal 299 stuffed birds in 2009. The then 22-year-old travelled from London in the middle of the night to remove the precious bird skins from their cases with a glass cutter, which were mainly from Central and South America, and New Guinea. It took police almost two years to track him down and he was ultimately given a one-year suspended prison sentence, with many of the birds rendered worthless after their tags were removed.

BBC stars jailed for fishing

Stars of the BBC show Trawlermen, Charles Leslie McBride, 55, and Charles Hubert McBride, 36, were jailed and fined 拢370,000 for illegal fishing in 2009. The father and son from County Down were prosecuted after exceeding their legal fishing quotas. Along with an accomplice they made 拢15m from selling fish they did not have a licence to remove from the water they found them in. They were jailed for two and three months respectively at Liverpool Crown Court.

Farmer jailed for river damage

Last year John Price, a 68-year-old farmer from Herefordshire, was jailed for cutting trees from the banks of the River Lugg, recklessly polluting the water, and killing invertebrate species living there. He admitted seven charges of damaging the river having hired diggers and bulldozers to get rid of the trees and used gravel from the riverbed to make an exercise yard for his horse. As well as his 10-month prison sentence, he was ordered to pay for the restoration of 1.6 miles of the river, which had an estimated cost of 拢700,000.

Stolen orchids

In 2022, police were unable to find gangs behind thefts of rare orchids from Folkestone, Kent and the South Downs in Sussex. An alert was issued by the National Wildlife Crime Unit after dozens of late spider, lizard, and burnt orchids were taken, with experts claiming they were being stolen to order.

Chinese herbalist's illegal seahorses

Also in 2022, traditional Chinese medicine practitioner Lei Zheng was given a six-month suspended prison sentence and 120 hours unpaid work for seven counts of selling endangered species. Northamptonshire Police鈥檚 rural crime team searched his home and office to find musk, seahorses, and pangolin scales 鈥� one of the most trafficked animals in the world.

The most common crimes

The most common wildlife crimes are committed when illegal developments kill or displace protected species like bats and birds, Mr Browne says.

Breaches of the Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975 are also among the most common, he adds, which include fishing without a licence or poaching fish beyond designated quotas.

And despite the hunting ban, breaches continue on a "very regular basis in a very blatant manner", Mr Browne says.

"Hunts get away with it simply because of the financial resources they're able to bring against prosecution."

There is also seasonal variation in offending, RSPCA wildlife coordinator Inspector Geoff Edmund tells Sky News.

During spring, birds are often injured or killed when hedges are damaged. Bats also come out of hibernation around this time to find the roofs they've roosted in damaged, he says.

Meanwhile, summer and longer days bring an annual increase in animal cruelty cases against badgers and foxes.

Not a victimless crime

Wildlife crimes are "often seen as victimless", which leads to a "lesser perception of harm and underreporting", according to a 2023 report by Nottingham Trent University and the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

But the study also found that 95% of experts surveyed had experienced wildlife crime being linked to theft, while almost a third (32%) had encountered links with sex crimes.

Mr Browne says: "If you get pleasure from baiting a badger, you're unlikely to stop at wild animals, and may go on to hurt humans or property."

Beyond animal cruelty, damage to wildlife adds to food and water insecurity, he adds.

"If nature continues to erode there's a wider damage for society. It's not just 'oh there are few pretty birds to look at'. It will affect the very fundamentals of our economy, farming, and clean water supply."

And with 30% of English wild animals in decline, and one in eight threatened with extinction, further loss of species will accelerate climate change, he warns.

"Even if you don't like nature - there are the real consequences of living a more insecure life," he says.

Wildlife Countryside Link and other campaigning groups are calling for legal reform and better training for police forces and prosecutors to deter criminals and help identify repeat offenders.

Sky News has contacted the Crown Prosecution Service and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) for comment.

What motivates a prolific egg thief?

Returning to the case of Daniel Lingham, Mr Browne describes his repeated offending as "absolutely shocking" and a "good example of a selfish obsession taking away from nature and the local community".

The RSPB has said his actions mean "thousands of breeding birds, which have invested huge amounts of energy into rearing young" will have failed to do so - putting the wider population at risk.

While much wildlife crime is driven by money, so-called 'kleptomania' is a complex impulse-control disorder that often serves no financial benefit to the sufferer - and causes them much additional strain.

"The individual knows what they do is wrong, socially unacceptable, likely to make them more isolated, and is likely to lead to complications and legal troubles if not ceased, yet they feel powerless to stop it," says Professor Craig Jackson, professor of occupational health psychology at Birmingham City University.

He describes it as a "miserable roller-coaster-like experience of extreme highs and lows, anxiety and relief, accomplishment and shame".

Potential biological causes are not fully understood, but among the possibilities are reduced levels of serotonin, an addiction to the 'rush' of dopamine to the brain when stealing, and pre-existing injuries to the brain's limbic system, which regulates emotion and behaviour.

Evidence has shown many 'kleptomaniacs' suffer from other mental health disorders, which can make stealing a "distraction and relief from other issues in people's lives they cannot control or manage", Professor Jackson adds.

The professor continues: "Whatever the causes, any learned behaviour that makes an individual feel 'better' without having any immediate negative consequences will be repeated again and again.

"Impulse control disorders are very illogical, bring little pleasure or long-term relief and are often gateways to other problems."

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