Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the number of poaching incidents in the UK in each of the last five years.

Data from the Ministry of Justice in the table below provides the best available information and concerns the number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts for offences related to poaching in England and Wales from 2011 to 2015. This includes offences under the Deer act 1991 sec. 1(4),9, the Game Act 1831 sec. 30, the Night Poaching Act 1828 sec. 1, and the Poaching Prevention Act 1862 sec. 2.