Chris Packham launches new not-for-profit dedicated to prosecuting public bodies which fail to protect wildlife and threatens: 'We're coming for you'

That’s the message from the Springwatch star who yesterday joined two other conservationists in launching a new, not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to prosecuting legal cases on behalf of wildlife against public bodies where they are failing to protect species and habitats.

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Launching Wild Justice, he said: “The pressures wrought upon our wildlife have reached a crisis point and this is an essential response. The message is clear... if you are breaking the law, if the law is weak, if the law is flawed – we are coming for you. Peacefully, democratically and legally.”

He said Wild Justice’s premise was to use existing laws to ‘seek real justice for our wildlife’.

“Our wildlife has been abused, has been suffering, exploited or destroyed by criminals for too long,” he said. “Well, no longer. Wild Justice will at last be the voice of those victims and it will be heard and justice will be served.”

The presenter likened the unlawful killing of a golden eagle – one of the UK’s rarest birds – to destroying a national asset such as a Constable painting and demanded this kind of crime should be treated more seriously.

Mr Packham has established himself as a leading voice in nature conservation in the UK and in Europe, where he has regularly battled the authorities in Malta and Cyprus over their countries’ cruel trapping and destruction of song-birds.

He’s also campaigned for re-wilding and is patron of a number of conservation organisations.

Earlier this year, he offered himself as a human quarry for the New Forest Fox Hounds, who carry out ‘trail’ hunting. Mr Packham visited the hunt near Ringwood to ask to them to change and made his offer to be their first human quarry, if the group would switch to drag hunting which he says is safer for foxes.

The hunt claimed the move would be ‘impractical’. Fox-hunting was outlawed in 2004, and many hunts turned to ‘trail’ hunting in which hounds chase an artificial scent but critics believe this still results in hunts pursuing foxes, by accident or on purpose. Wild Justice will be crowd-funded.