Member

With maritime crime, it is pretty jaw-dropping to realise that Devon and Cornwall police have to cover all that extensive coastline, including the Scilly Isles, with all their wrecks, which is another heritage issue. Maritime crime includes wildlife crime. Last week, I went to a meeting hosted by the Wildlife and Countryside Link about seals and sea mammals. At the meeting, it was explained that much of the harassment of protected mammals, though constituting a crime, is because people want an Instagram photograph with said mammal. So the creatures are harassed, the police are called—the police are very stretched as they have to police out to the 12-mile limit—and they then have an enforcement job. This is an education issue, really. We should be explaining better to the public what happens to our wildlife when you just want your Instagram photo. Maybe you are frightening the seal, so it leaves its pups, the pups die and that is another tragedy.