Hunting with dogs

This section outlines offences previously covered by the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, which has now been repealed and replaced by the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023. The 2023 Act came into force on 3 October 2023. Under this legislation, it is an offence to hunt a wild mammal using a dog unless one of the statutory exceptions applies. Most permitted activities are restricted to the use of no more than two dogs, except where a licence allows otherwise. The Act also expands the definition of “wild mammal” to include rabbits, while still excluding rats and mice. However, the statistics cannot specifically distinguish between crimes related to the new and old legislation.

Offences here will also be recorded under one of the specific priority areas, or as ‘not aligned to a priority area’.

There was a spike in hunting with dogs offences in 2023-24 before dropping in 2024-25.
Figure 22: hunting with dogs offences recorded by Police Scotland, 2019-20 to 2024-25.

Seventy-three hunting with dogs offences were recorded in 2023-24, second only to the peak of 85 offences in 2020-21 in the six-year period 2019-20 to 2024-25. Of the 73 offences recorded in 2023-24, 50 occurred in Fife. The unusually high number of offences recorded in Fife during 2023-24 can be attributed to an investigation against one individual who was charged with, and reported for, a large number of wildlife offences.

Looking at the species most commonly targeted in these 73 offences in 2023-24, there were 36 offences involving hares, 15 involving deer and 10 involving foxes.

In 2024-25, hunting with dogs offences fell to 22, including a substantial decrease in Fife with just two offences recorded compared to 50 the previous year. In 2024-25, hares were again the most commonly targeted species (14 offences), followed by badgers, deer, foxes and rabbits (2 offences each).

Further detail: see Tables 61 and 62 of the supporting documents for hunting with dogs offences by police division and target species, and Tables 63 and 64 for offences by species and time of year.