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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many incidents of the use of catapults causing harm to wild mammals have been recorded in each of the last five years.

The Government takes wildlife crime seriously. Defra supports the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU), which helps prevent and detect wildlife crime by obtaining and disseminating intelligence, undertaking analysis which highlights local or national threats and directly assisting law enforcers in their investigations. Defra is providing £424,000 for NWCU in the financial year 2025-2026.

However, crimes against wildlife using catapults are not ‘notifiable’. This means police forces are not required to record and report figures on this type of crime to the Home Office for statistical and monitoring purposes. Defra therefore holds no official statistics on the number of incidents of the use of catapults causing harm to wild mammals from the last five years. Any decision to make such wildlife offences notifiable sits with the Home Office rather than Defra. Regardless of notifiable status, when it comes to responding to the most prevalent wildlife crimes, police force Chief Constables have operational independence to tackle the crimes that matter most to their communities.