Mink Trap Wins First UFAW Wild Animal Welfare Award

Ben Bradshaw, Minister for Nature Conservation and Fisheries, presented the first UFAW wild animal welfare award to Dr Jonathan Reynolds of The Game Conservancy Trust for an innovative GCT mink raft, which is helping to restore water vole populations.

The Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) award recognises innovations that are relevant to improving the welfare of captive wild animals or which alleviate or prevent harm of human origin to animals in the wild.

Mink first established themselves in Britain in the 1950's after being released from fur farms. They are now found throughout the British Isles, where they have had a disastrous impact on water vole populations which have declined by 90% in some areas. The water vole is now a priority species under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan which recognises the need to control mink to conserve dwindling numbers.

The raft is essentially a mink detector which guides trapping efforts to create an incisive population control programme. A tunnel on the raft houses a simple cartridge which records the footprints of any visiting animals in a moist clay and sand mixture. By showing where mink are active, the raft avoids wasting trapping efforts at locations without mink and also reduces non-target captures.