Wildlife Enforcement Directorate: annual summary 2018 to 2019

Full report: Wildlife Enforcement Directorate: annual report 2018 to 2019 [PDF]

The Wildlife Enforcement Directorate (WED) is a part of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Enforcement Branch (EB). WED is responsible for enforcing federal wildlife legislation that protects plant and animal species and their habitat in Canada. It also enforces legislation that protects many foreign species, such as endangered and threatened species in trade, migratory birds and some invasive species.

This annual summary covers the period of April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019. It reports on WED’s priorities, actions and achievements and includes information about enforcement highlights, people, partners and resources.

Our enforcement priorities focus on protecting species and habitats that are most at risk from conservation threats and/or illegal human activity.

We take a risk-based and intelligence-driven approach to developing our annual priorities for planned and targeted inspections. This allows us to identify potential offenders who could cause the worst damage, and to protect the species most at risk from non-compliant human activities. In addition, routine and complaints-based inspections continue to remain an important part of our enforcement program.

Our priorities

Our 2018-2019 accomplishments


Although this report offers a wide variety of information, it is impossible to include all of our annual activities in one document. To learn more about WED, visit the Wildlife enforcement and legislation Web site.

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