Illegal killing of foxes
Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/EIR/25/000026/D
Version Date: 13/05/2025
The Performance & Analysis Department has provided the following information.
Data Processing:
Crimes recorded on crime information system - NICHE
Cancelled crimes included, Non-notifiable crimes included
Qliksense Report: Crime and Outcomes
Filtered by date: 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2024
Home Office Code
097/01
108/24
108/29
108/32
197/01
Excel search for foxes in the MO/Summary
|
Crimes recorded on crime information system - NICHE |
|
Qliksense Report: Offence Management |
|
Filtered by date: 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2024 |
|
Offence HO Code: |
|
097/01 |
|
097/04 |
|
108/24 - nil |
|
108/29 - nil |
|
108/32 - nil |
|
197/01 |
Qliksense Report: Incidents
Filtered by date: 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2024
Initial search
Qualifier Opening Secondary: Animal/Wildlife
Secondary search
Qualifier Closing Secondary: Animal/Wildlife and Animal Problems
Data sets combined, duplicates removed
Excel search for foxes in the Description
Data Limitations:
Offences of this nature are not notifiable to the Home Office by police forces. This means police are not required to record a crime in respect of these. As a result, figures for these offences after 14 November 2022 are highly likely to decrease or completely stop.
Police are required to record the reported incident on our command-and-control system. However, such incidents are not easily located given the very generic classifications applied to the incidents, namely ASB – Animal problems, or Public Safety – Animals/Wildlife.
Data Output:
There were 260 offences found, between 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2024, which fell under the offence codes 097/01, 108/24, 108/29, 108/32 or 197/01.
Of those, seven mentioned fox within the MO/Summary.
There were a further 57 crimes found under the offence codes, with no MO/ Summary to visible in the report. These were manually reviewed, and none were relevant to this request.
Please note: the information has been taken from crime reports not incident reports. Incidents that have not been ‘crimed’ have not been included.
Please state how many instances of illegal killing of foxes (or lethal injuries that led to the fox having to be euthanised by veterinarians) have been reported to Devon and Cornwall Constabulary during the years of 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Please provide the information in the form of an Excel sheet, broken down by year and month.
|
Offence Description |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
Grand Total |
|
Cause unnecessary suffering to a protected animal - Animal Welfare Act 2006 (recordable) |
0 |
3 |
3 |
6 |
|
Fail to inspect snare for wild animal every day (recordable) |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
Grand Total |
1 |
3 |
3 |
7 |
For each incident, please provide (1) a description as to what happened, (2) when the incident was reported, and (3) what the outcome was (e.g. did it result in any prosecutions or criminal convictions).
|
Outcome |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
Grand Total |
|
Evidential Difficulties - Victim Declines |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
Investigation Complete: No Suspect - Case Closed |
1 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
|
Pending CSU Outcome |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
Suspect Identified - Evidential Difficulties |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
|
Grand Total |
1 |
3 |
3 |
7 |
For each incident, could you also specify which illegal method was used (e.g. self-locking snares, other improper snares, air weapons that did not kill the fox immediately, spring traps, and others as stated here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/foxes-moles-and-mink-how-to-protect-your-property-from-damage#illegal-pest-control-methods).
|
Circumstance |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
Grand Total |
|
Fox den (with cubs inside) filled with soil/rubble |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
Fox found deceased |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
Illegal fox hunt - fox killed |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
Illegal fox hunt with dogs and horses |
0 |
0 |
3 |
3 |
|
Suspected illegal fox hunt |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
Grand Total |
1 |
3 |
3 |
7 |