Renewed calls to ban catapults as Kent sees hundreds of incidents

KentOnline / KMTV

A shocking wave of youth-led catapult attacks on birds, swans, ducks and foxes has been described by “emotionally drained” wildlife workers as “a new kind of pandemic”.

Transcript

00:00It's a social media trend that has shocked and disturbed many animal lovers across the county.

00:05This incident is too distressing to show on film. From 2023 to March this year,

00:10345 catapult attacks have been reported to police. Although figures show a decline in cases,

00:15campaigners say it's still 345 too many.

00:18Children also go to Blue Water, so I'm called there often with swans that have been catapulted,

00:24geese, you know, so I'm often patrolling. It's a weekly occurrence, a weekly occurrence,

00:29you know, and there's no end in sight. So, you know, as a community we've come together and

00:34we're standing up and we're talking out now, you know, to call for a ban to catapult and please,

00:39you know, we need to hold the children accountable for what they're doing.

00:45But for those who catapult for sport, a total ban just wouldn't work.

00:49It can't be done. Every tree with a fork,

00:52every physiotherapy, there are 65,000 members of the Professional Association of Physiotherapy.

00:57They all use rubber bands as do postmen. There's something in your magazine about how to make

01:02catapults out of sticks and rubber bands that you find in an office. It's a genie you're not putting

01:06back in the bottle. What we need to do is catch the people who are misbehaving with them. There's a

01:12term called a sitting duck for anything that literally is too stupid to get out of the way.

01:16This is not sport, this is not clever, this is not intelligent, this is just murderous cretinism.

01:20There is overall lots more good than bad to be had. And our side of it as a community is to

01:26be vocal in condemning it. Go to a club, if you want to show how clever you are, go to a club,

01:31go and see if you can win a trophy and be better at it than the other guys.

01:34Every single one of us, whether it's proper hunters or especially just target shooters,

01:39wants these kids caught.

01:40With many sides of the debate ongoing questions turned to the police and what's being done to

01:45stop animals being killed. These devices can cause quite significant damage to people,

01:51to wildlife and to property. So I've lobbied the government to change the law to

01:58make it illegal to carry these in public and give the police more powers to stop and search people for

02:03them. Kent police will respond and investigate and they will target those areas where they're

02:08seeing them happen the most. But we desperately need more people to report them so that we can

02:13deal with this blight on our community.

02:15With this wave of killing for sport in some cases, it is a waiting game to see if the trend will end

02:20and if it can continue to be a harmless sport for enthusiasts.

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