Scottish Plans to Eradicate Mink - Still?

[vole-woman]

I've just read a report in the Financial Times by a guy called Robin Lane Fox claiming that the plans to eradicate mink in Scotland have been stopped. But I can't find any evidence online that this is the case.

He says: "Culls have been declared in parts of Scotland but a campaign to kill off all mink in the wild because they are not “indigenous Britons” faltered because the “indigenous” status of anything from pheasants to dormice was equally indefensible."

The whole article's a silly exercise in flag-waving and "hasn't-political-correctness-gone-mad" type ranting, using water voles as a convenient rhetorical vehicle. Plus the Times has a poor record on accurate water vole reporting generally, in my experience.

However, I did want to check on here/ Does anyone know if RLF is correct? Has the programme been halted?

(Here's the link to the article in case anyone's interested: FT.com / weekend columnists / Robin Lane Fox - Ratty weeps in the willows )

[earthdragon64]

There isn't one single co-ordinated cull, but different programmes at different stages in various places, I think most are on-going. I certainly can't find anything to say any of these have been halted.

I've searched the Scottish Natural Heritage website, and the Scottish Wildlife Trust website and can find nothing to say that any of the existing programmes have been halted or delayed.

Rgards, Audrey.

[vole-woman]

I suspected he didn't know what he was talking about. He cites the ban on hunting with dogs as a backwards step re mink numbers, ignoring such inconvenient facts as the damage this method did to riparian habitat, the large numbers of mink it allowed to escape, the way it helped breed stronger mink by spreading the gene pool, and that there's a recognised and vastly more efficient method of controlling mink (rafts/cages) that doesn't impact on other species or damage banks.

[vole-woman]

This isn't true, either: "Otters regard mink as competitors for fish and if mink are sighted in a “ring of bright water”, the local otters will drive them out." All that happens is mink alter their hunting patterns to avoid the otters, and maybe grow slightly leaner. But I've often found mink and otter spraint together, showing the animals are sharing a territory.

Why do people insist on writing articles on subjects they know nothing about? I'm wondering whether it was even a dead water vole he found - sounds as though it could have been another sort of vole or mouse or even a young rat.