the harvest mouse, one of the world's smallest mammals, is on the verge of extinction. It is disappearing from large parts of the uk as farmers and developers clear rough ground and drain ditches. A survey conducted by the uk 's Mammal Society shows that harvest mice has vanished from 71 per cent of the sites where they nested in the 1970's.
The harvest mouse has been hit hardest in the farmlands of southern England, where 85 per cent of suitable habitat has gone. In East Anglia, things are not much better with a loss of 68 per cent of suitable sites. The main reason for the decline is the cleaning up that has taken place in the countryside over the past two decades. Farmers now plough as close to the edges of their fields as possible and spray the margins with pesticides. These pesticides have made the tall, tussocky grasses grow, which have further affected their population. "This subtle change in the landscape may have had a fatal effect," says Gillie Sargent of the Mammal Society.
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