Polecats are recovering across England after near-extinction and expanding their range, facing welfare challenges from road casualties, trapping, and misidentification as ferrets.
Polecats illegally killed by gamekeepers who mistake them for ferrets or deliberately target them face acute welfare harms from trapping, shooting, or poisoning. Individuals killed in Fenn traps set for other quarry species die by crushing. Road casualties during dispersal from established populations disproportionately affect young animals in their first year. Range expansion success depends on reducing persecution in areas where polecats are newly established.