One in five UK mammals facing extinction, study shows

Red squirrels are facing a threat to their survival
Lucia Binding13 June 2018

At least one in five British mammals is at high risk of extinction, a study has found.

Red squirrels, wildcats and grey long-eared bats are among the species facing severe threats to their survival due to disease and loss of their natural habitat.

Populations of nine species – including hedgehogs, water voles and even rabbits – have declined in the last 20 years, according to the first major review of British mammals for more than two decades.

Hedgehog numbers have fallen by two-thirds since the previous estimate in 1995.

Wildcats are one of the mammals at high risk of extinction
AFP/Getty Images

Red squirrels have also suffered marked declines and water vole populations are considered to be just a 10th of what they used to be in the 1990s.

It’s not all bad news for some species, such as otters, whose range has expanded since the banning of pesticides which poisoned their river homes.

Pine martens, polecats and badgers are also bouncing back from former persecution.

Deer – which have no natural predators in the UK – have increased in number, while beavers and wild boar have returned to British shores since the last time such a study was completed.

Deers in the UK have increased in number The study, led by the Mammal Society and commissioned by government agency Natural England, examined 1.5 million records of mammals across Britain.
Alex Lentati

The study, led by the Mammal Society and commissioned by government agency Natural England, examined 1.5 million records of mammals across Britain.

While it found that almost one in five species (12 out of 58) is threatened with extinction across Britain, a lack of data means the true figure is likely to be higher, the experts said.

Fiona Mathews, chairwoman of the Mammal Society and professor of Environmental Biology at the University of Sussex, warned that Britain is on a "little bit of a precipice".

"We have a few winners - the deer and carnivores - but if you look beyond the deer and the carnivores, it's difficult to see many native species that look like they're are doing well or increasing," she said.

Hedgehog numbers have fallen by two-thirds ( OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images)
AFP/Getty Images

She added that there is a need to think about fixes that work, rather wasting money on things such as road crossings for mammals that are ineffective, and to look at the role animals including beavers and wild boar play in the landscape.

"We need to stop thinking of wildlife as something that happens somewhere else, and we just put a ring around it, and that's all your animals sorted,” she said.

"The idea of tiny nature reserves, national parks and so on is a bit of a worry because most of the British landscape isn't like that.

"Most wild animals move over a wide distance, and we need to make sure we have connective landscapes, we have places throughout Britain where animals have a home."

With the UK set to design its system for paying farmers to manage land as it leaves the European Union, the experts called for support for managing marginal land, hedgerows and patches of woodland for wildlife.

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