Hope our water voles don’t fall prey to mink

Richard Davenport, in your story ‘Waterways mystery killer solved’, suggests that we should be happy to have American mink in our waterways and he wonders how wildlife enthusiasts discriminate fairly between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ wildlife.

The reality is that species adapt and, where different species have evolved together, they have done so because they have found ways of co-habiting without one species wiping out another.

This process takes place over millennia. With mink, introduced to this country from America in the 1920s in order to create a local fur production industry, there has been no such opportunity for adaptation.

So when they first started escaping from fur farms, and then many were released by animal activists, the local wildlife had no chance to fend off this voracious killer.

Native birds and mammals have all suffered as a result.

WildCookham’s project to reintroduce one of the affected species – the water vole, which had suffered a near total annihilation due to mink – depends on controlled numbers of mink, in accordance with the UK National Species Action Plan, and we have been monitoring them and, where found, controlling numbers following DEFRA guidelines.

Without following Government advice, they will always be here, but the numbers locally and nationally are falling thanks to concerted and sustained efforts by the many organisations and volunteers involved.

Their disappearance locally has already resulted in the revival of some bird species (whose young and eggs are predated by mink) and has now enabled us to release

the water voles: time will tell whether this is successful.

Of course, the principal predator, responsible for the (as it turned out) irresponsible introduction of mink to the UK, is ourselves.

But that’s another story.

And we look forward to continuing cooperation with Maidenhead Waterways in ensuring that our local waterways become a healthy and lasting habitat where our (native) species can thrive unhindered by human error.

MIKE COPLAND Chair, WildCookham