[Continuation from column 548]
Hunting Bill
8:45 pm
Mr John Maples (Stratford-on-Avon, Conservative)
My knowledge of the water vole has been expanded by another dimension by the hon. Lady's intervention. My notes say that the water vole has declined by an estimated 88 per cent. of its total population over the past 10 to 12 years, presumably almost entirely due to mink. At one time, after they had first escaped from captivity, it was Government policy to eradicate mink, not just to control them. Mink are a pest, they are not native, and we have survived for hundreds of years until the 1950s without mink. Yet now they are getting the protected status that is not even due to the little fluffy bunnies about which everyone anthropomorphises. It is still Government policy to eliminate them in certain areas of Scotland.