 Wildlife crime, as once again entered the spotlight, as the Crown Office and senior police officers gave evidence in public to the Scottish Parliament. The meeting was part of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee's scrutiny of the Scottish Government's recent Wildlife Crime in Scotland report. We are looking at the detail of how a wildlife crime takes place because it's complex, it's difficult to detect and we have to get as the best possible evidence to find out for ourselves if we're satisfied that the acts which have been passed are actually effective. There are quite a number of known unknowns in the world of wildlife crime investigation, as there are in relation to quite a large number of other crimes that are reported to the police, or indeed crimes that we have to proactively seek, and wildlife crime falls into both of those categories, so some of them will only be found by the police, or indeed other agencies proactively seeking them, as you've referred to, but a number are recorded as a result of being reported to us by a member of the public. The sheer difficulty which is raised by crimes that are committed so far out into the countryside where there is a real problem with gathering evidence, and if you compare the experience of crime in urban environments where there are always, by definition, going to be a much larger supply of potential witnesses, and as a result of that, then a much greater scope for data gathering. Well, we were happy that they are providing us with follow-up evidence and some questions which couldn't be answered, but they have opinions about the partners that they work with. They are aware that the data and statistics need to be as clear as possible, and as we build up a picture, I think we're going to get an annual report from them, and we may well interview people from the prosecution and police services at that time. But it's given this committee for the first time a fairly clear idea of how wildlife crime is being prosecuted. The committee is to take evidence from the Rural Affairs Minister Paul Wheelhouse next week.