FOI Dead Birds of Prey (0112-2022/23)

Request

I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 about the number of reports the police force has received, regarding the number of confirmed dead birds of prey over the past five years.
           
• Please would you be able to tell me the number of dead birds of prey that have been confirmed by the police for each year?

• Please would you be able to tell me the cause of death confirmed by the police for each dead bird of prey for each year? If the answer is unknown, please state this.

• Finally, for each year, would you be able to tell me how many of these confirmed deaths resulted in some form of police prosecution stating whether or not each prosecution was successful?

Response
Extent of Searches to Locate Information

Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information. 

Decision

I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt.

Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Reports of this nature are held under a specific closure code alongside other aspects of wildlife, in order to obtain the information required a manual read of all reports held under this code would be required, which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act.

Consideration is given as to the cause of death for all birds of prey incidents and where information is available that enables further enquiries these are also progressed. Clearly not all dead birds of prey die in suspicious circumstances, but those that do are dealt with appropriately.

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, due to the information provided above I am unable to suggest how you may refine your request and still receive the information within the cost threshold.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.