Wildlife crime team disbanded by Dorset Police

One of the country's leading wildlife crime teams has seemingly been disbanded, according to reports.

Dorset Police's team had recently been involved in the high-profile case of a poisoned White-tailed Eagle in the county, which local MP Chris Loder had criticised police for investing their time in. In March, the force dropped the investigation into the eagle's death and called off a search of the property at which it was found. 

As reported by Helena Horton in the Guardian, Dorset's wildlife crime team was rebranded around this time, with the 'wildlife' removed from its title, making its new title 'Dorset police rural crime team'. This change was reflected on the team's Twitter profile and the wildlife crime section of the local policing website has also been removed.

The decision leaves conservationists concerned that influence and pressure are being exerted on the police from landowners to ignore wildlife crime, and that the Dorset decision may influence similar shake-ups in other areas.

Two reintroduced White-tailed Eagles were found dead in southern counties at the beginning of the year (Luke Hepples).

The RSPB said that "if the level of response from any force to wildlife crime incidents was diminished in any way" then this would be a problem, with its Head of Investigations, Mark Thomas, adding that Dorset police had been an "exemplary force to work with".

A spokesperson for Dorset police told the Guardian: "Dorset police is committed to keeping everyone in our county safe, including our wildlife, which brings so much to our beautiful countryside and our communities.

"As part of the police uplift programme and working together with the office of the police and crime commissioner we have reviewed our rural crime strategy for the county and allocated increased numbers of officers to the rural crime team to tackle the issues that matter. This includes all aspects of rural, wildlife and heritage-related crime.

"We will continue to work closely with many different partner agencies in relation to these issues. We want to make it clear that we take any and all potential wildlife offences seriously and will act to prevent and detect offences wherever possible."