LITERARY REVIEW

IN Evelyn Waugh’s novel Scoop, William Boot is the hapless hero, who famously observed in his nature notes column for the fictional Daily Beast: “Feather footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.”

Such sentiments show how little Mr Boot really knew about voles. They are not feather footed and they do not quest but move with a sort of rapid waddle, says Tom Moorhouse, who knows a great deal more about the behaviour of the water vole.

Mr Moorhouse, a researcher at Oxford University’s zoology department, was offered the chance to study voles for a doctorate in 1999. His first discovery was that catching voles from a rowing boat is nobody’s idea of having a good time.

Motorboats sped past and threatened to overturn him; he was heckled by jeering champagne drinkers idling on narrow boats; and was bitten by voles in their fury at being caught.

On one trip he was rowing home through torrents of rain when one of his rowlocks snapped so that he had to punt, using his oar as a makeshift pole. It was at this moment that he passed a tourist, sitting on the embankment under an umbrella. His recollection: “I was sodden, chilled, late, tired, aggravated, filthy and smelt strongly of vole urine. The tourist took a photograph.”

Despite this, he writes very affectionately – even wittily – about voles and their nature, a model even for the sensible, kindly Ratty of Wind In The Willows. They have been living on our riverbanks for at least 14,800 years, although numbers dropped by an astonishing 99 per cent in the years between 1939 and 1998. And all because of the demand and fashion for fur coats.

In the 1920s, American mink were imported into Britain. Some of these minks, understandably reluctant to be turned into fashionable items, escaped.

For a while, their numbers were kept down by otters, who not only kill mink but are known to chew off certain parts of their anatomy to teach these incomers a lesson they won’t forget. But when otters were killed off in turn by farm pesticides washing into rivers, the mink had a free hand.

It was the author’s job to breed voles in captivity and then introduce them to 12 rivers in Oxfordshire. He did this with some success, not that everything ran entirely smoothly.

To keep track of the voles, researchers fitted the little creatures with tiny radio collars. This had an extraordinary consequence – the number of female babies dropped by half.

It seems that the collars were causing stress in the mothers, and a natural hormonal mechanism kicked in which raised the male birth rate. Female voles occupy distinct territories, while male voles roam widely in search of a good time. In times of crisis – a food shortage or, as we now know, when a zoologist fits a radio collar – it makes sense to give birth to more males, who will spread far and wide without amassing or building territory. Such is the wonder and cleverness of nature.

After such a discovery, Mr Moorhouse found himself lambasted in the media. “Scientists studying the causes of the water vole’s decline are to blame,” said one accusing newspaper headline.

Moorhouse concluded that the vole population will never truly recover until American mink are largely eradicated.

He then turns his attention to another weedy British native under threat from a brash American rival.

The white-clawed crayfish has been almost wiped out by the burly and aggressive signal crayfish, imported in 1976 for a scheme to harvest home-grown crayfish.

This idea could not have been more damaging. According to Moorhouse, there are now probably billions of signal crayfish in our rivers and streams, and they have ferocious appetites.

They eat small invertebrates, fish eggs, frog and toad spawn. They churn-up river beds, which is why rivers are not as clear as they used to be. “Signal crayfish have made rivers emptier of everything except signal crayfish,” he says.

And, yet, was this all for nothing? There is no thriving trade in British crayfish. We actually import crayfish from China, where it is cheaper to prepare them for sale in supermarkets.

What’s particularly enjoyable about this book is its upbeat tone. The author clearly enjoyed his research work, even when he was being bitten, jeered at, and sunburned.

Up to his waders in the rivers of Oxfordshire and beyond, it’s only towards the end of his cheerful journey that he strikes a gloomy note. What, he wonders, has all the effort been for?

“For all the real-world, on-the-ground, species-saving impact that my research has had, I could pretty much have just spent my time bumbling amiably around the British countryside,” he says. “My research achieved almost nothing of practical value.”

The problem is money. As it always is. He estimates that adequate conservation measures would cost around £71.2billion ($100 billion) a year worldwide. It sounds a lot, but he claims that America spends double that annually on fizzy drinks.

Moorhouse suggest that, if insurance agencies invested £7.1billion a year on coastal habitats, it would save them an annual bill of £37billion in claims for flood damage. If the seafood industry invested a similar amount, their profits would rise by £37.8billion.

Expressed in such terms the case is very convincing, but will government and big business really be persuaded in the current economic (Covid-19 pandemic) circumstances?