Ref: Mink Keeping Prohibition Order 2004

We welcome the order because the mink population in England, Scotland and
Wales is now out of control. It is having a terrible effect on livestock and
on wildlife in our countryside. Mink arrived here in the 1920s. Since then,
thanks not least to the disgraceful activities of so-called animal rights
activists-[Interruption.]-they have now been released. We are told that the
pre-breeding population in Britain is something like 110,000.

I was glad to hear the Minister say, ''Hear, hear'' from a sedentary
position. I take it that he entirely condemns the activities of those
disgraceful people. Not only have they released mink into the wild, but they
have taken part in all kinds of other pretty awful activities in the name of
so-called animal rights. I am glad that the Committee condemns their
disgraceful and irresponsible behaviour.

The 110,000 mink now spread across almost all parts of the mainland are
extremely aggressive and they are highly effective predators on all sorts of
native species, particularly the water vole. The water vole population has
collapsed in England as a result, but the mink has also had a devastating
effect on ground-nesting birds, fish and, to a degree, on otters, although
that is the subject of academic debate.

Some people say that the otter is bigger and will have its own land and that
that spreads the mink away from his own territory; others say that the mink
is instinctively more aggressive that the otter and that mink have been seen
to attack otters. The two animals cannot live together.

There is clear evidence of a dislike of mink in most of the responses to the
2003 consultation by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
on the statutory instrument. English Nature said:


''Research has shown that wild mink present the greatest single impediment
to the delivery of the government's biodiversity action plan for the water
vole.''