Norfolk Police appeal as otter dies after being shot in the head near Aylsham
The animal was found in Buxton near Aylsham, Norfolk on Wednesday, but is thought to have travelled some distance before being discovered, Norfolk Police said.
The otter was put down due to the severity of its injuries and the force is appealing for anyone in the area with information to come forward.
PC Chris Shelley said: 'This is a deeply upsetting incident involving a protected species.
"We are urging anyone who may have seen suspicious activity involving air weapons, slingshots, or similar devices in the area to come forward.'
Otters are protected under UK and European law and the use of air weapons and similar devices against wildlife has been "a growing concern nationally", Norfolk Police said.
A dedicated police operation - Operation Lakeshot - has been launched to better understand and tackle the crime.
Anyone with information is urged to contact PC Chris Shelley via email at Christopher.shelley@norfolk.police.uk, quoting incident number 36/36976/25.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
12 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
ANDREW PIERCE: Londoners have the Tube, Sadiq Khan has a gravy train
London may be riddled with crime, soaring prices and poor-quality transport – but at least Mayor Sadiq Khan and his officials can enjoy the finer things in life. Latest figures reveal City Hall racked up a £2billion expenses bill in the past financial year. This includes a jaw-dropping £4.6million on printing, £805,000 on hotel accommodation and £57,000 on photography. Then there's the £48,000 spent on postage and another £31,000 for European and domestic flights. The Mayor himself also received tickets worth almost £8,000 to football matches and Taylor Swift concerts (he was last month cleared of wrongdoing in relation to the gifts). And, not to be outdone, his aides have cashed in to the tune of £11,000 with tickets to Glastonbury, the Brit Awards and the UEFA Champions League football finals. Nice work if you can get it... In the Spring Statement, Rachel Reeves announced the formation of the Defence Growth Board to oversee investment in our Armed Forces. Five months later, how many times has it met? Not once. Yet more window-dressing from a Chancellor woefully out of her depth. Cotswolds locals weren't the only Britons amazed by Mr Vance's 24-vehicle entourage during his trip to Britain. BBC grandee John Simpson tells how the late Queen Elizabeth would travel around Britain by train. 'She and her companions would have four seats in a first-class carriage, plus two more for her detectives, leaving the rest of the carriage for the public,' he notes. '[They] were always stunned to see her with so little security.' All eyes will be on London's Guildhall on October 13 when Tory big beasts gather for the tenth anniversary dinner of the Margaret Thatcher Centre – dedicated to the legacy of Britain's greatest post-war leader. But there'll be one notable absence – that of party leader Kemi Badenoch, who will be attending a fundraising event elsewhere on the same night. Lammy's angling is rather fishy... It seems that David Lammy has never held a fishing rod in his life, to judge from his laughably unconvincing fishing pose with US Vice-President JD Vance. The Foreign Secretary, whose Tottenham constituency borders the favourite spot of many London anglers, the Walthamstow Wetlands, could have made more of an effort. I doubt his photo opportunity will have hooked their votes. If Keir Starmer needs advice, he might try Tory MP Esther McVey's words of wisdom. ''Never-here Keir' has clocked up a massive 100,000 air miles in just over a year – more than any prime minister this century – while suffering the steepest drop in approval ratings for any recent election-winning leader,' she says. 'Maybe if Keir spent more time in the UK he might improve his ratings!' Police minister Dame Diana Johnson advised victims of crime to dial 999 if they're in trouble or '111' for less serious issues. She ought to know 111 is for NHS matters. The police are on 101. Labour MP Afzal Khan, fired as trade envoy to Turkey, once overdid the henna while dying his hair, giving him alarmingly ginger roots. From the Press seats above, he looked like Rita Hayworth.
Spectator
20 hours ago
- Spectator
How Ireland became a haven for Hezbollah's cocaine
In the end, it was a combination of the Irish weather, European maritime intelligence and engine trouble that scuppered a massive Hezbollah-cartel drugs shipment. The Irish government's failure to patrol the coastline has made Ireland a safe harbour for the fast-evolving drug trafficking network merging terror and narco finance. Hezbollah's involvement in the transnational drugs trade to fund its war against Israel is well documented, with the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam its main conduit into Europe. But evidence from an Irish court last month revealing 'a major Iranian nexus' in a cocaine ship off Ireland's coast indicates that Hezbollah now sees Ireland's under patrolled coastline as a 'point of least resistance' into the lucrative European market. One security expert is reported as saying Ireland was being targeted for 'tonnage loads by Iranian Hezbollah.' In September 2023, a Panamanian registered cargo ship, MV Matthew, set sail from Venezuela heading for Irish waters. It had 2.2 tonnes of pure cocaine on board, funded by an alliance of Hezbollah, the Dubai-based Irish Kinahan crime gang and a South American cartel. The ship was to rendezvous at sea with a fishing trawler, the Castlemore, which would drop the drugs ashore at isolated coves for onward transport to the UK and Europe. Unknown to the Iranian captain, Soheil Jelveh, the European Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (MAOC), was tracking the ship across the Atlantic and tipped off the Irish authorities. But with just one large vessel to actively patrol a coastline ten times the size of Ireland's land mass and depleted navy personnel, monitoring and intercepting both ships was always going to be challenging. So many things could have gone wrong. Luckily, the Irish weather lent a hand. A raging storm hit Ireland the day the Castlemore was due to rendezvous with MV Matthew anchored 13 nautical miles off the east coast. After two failed attempts in storm force winds and swelling seas, the Castlemore ran aground. Its crew put in a distress call to the Irish coastguard, setting a train of action in motion. The eventual capture of the Matthew was like a scene from an action movie. Over the course of two days the ship played a game of cat and mouse with the Navy ship, LE William Butler Yeats, engaging in evasive manoeuvres in lashing winds and swelling seas. The Iranian captain, Soheil Jelveh refused to comply with orders from the Yeats, saying the ship had developed engine trouble. In reality, he was receiving orders from a Dubai-based individual, 'Captain Noah,' a shadowy figure linked to Hezbollah, to change course and head for Sierra Leone. The Matthew was successfully captured after Army Rangers were lowered onto the deck from a rope suspended by a helicopter hovering overhead and the ship was stormed. The 2.2 tonnes of pure cocaine was valued at £136 million, rising to £650 million when cut, making it the largest drugs seizure in the history of the state. Jelveh, Iranian crewman, Saeid Hassani, and six other crewmen were jailed for a total of 129 years at the non-jury Special Criminal Court last month. It was a stunning success for the defence forces, thanks to the skill and bravery of the individual members involved. But it could have gone badly wrong. Just two of eight Irish navy vessels are currently in operation; the rest are tied up at Cork harbour because of insufficient personal. A former officer in the Army Ranger Wing, Cathal Berry, has said: 'By not resourcing our Navy we have handed the keys of the country over to the drugs cartels to do with us as they wish. It is painful to see €250 million of naval vessels tied up at Cork Harbour unable to be put at sea due to a lack of crew.' Irish and international law agencies are now examining the ship's telecommunication equipment to access the extent of the Iranian-Hezbollah involvement. There is little doubt Hezbollah is trying to increase its drug activity because it is under financial pressure. As one international law enforcement official put it: 'When you are getting hit the way Hezbollah is getting hit right now by the Israelis, the only way you can make money exponentially fast is with drugs.' It is extremely unlikely that the Hezbollah-cartel alliance would have risked such a massive investment on the first run. It is a safe bet that Matthew was not the first or the last shipment to use Ireland as a gateway to the lucrative European market. Former head of MAOC, Michael O'Sullivan, said: 'The Irish Navy is very strapped and that has not gone unnoticed. We cover an area almost ten times the size of Ireland. And time is of the essence. If you find where a vessel has left and you're trying to track where it is, it's not gonna stay in one place, it's not going to go in the one direction… You have got to get somebody out there to get a sighting of it. If you don't find it, it's gone.' The implication is clear: Ireland is not just a strategic waypoint, but an exposed hub in a fast-evolving trafficking network merging terror and narco finance for which the depleted Irish Navy is ill equipped to deal with.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
‘British women and girls are paying the price for Labour's lax immigration laws'
Most European countries use detention centres but Britain puts undocumented men in accommodation while British families struggle under taxes
