Elegy For a River - Whiskers, Claws and Conservation's Last, Wild Hope

A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE WEEK: ''particularly enjoyable''
''Somehow laugh-out-loud funny - passionate, warm and full of fascinating insights into the eccentric world of the field naturalist.'' - Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

Water voles are small, brownish, bewhiskered and charming. Made famous by ''Ratty'' in The Wind in the Willows, once they were a ubiquitous part of our waterways. They were a totem of our rivers. Now, however, they are nearly gone. This is their story, and the story of a conservationist with a wild hope: that he could bring them back.

Tom Moorhouse spent eleven years beside rivers, fens, canals, lakes and streams, researching British wildlife. Quite a lot of it tried to bite him. He studied four main species - two native and endangered, two invasive and endangering - beginning with water voles. He wanted to solve their conservation problems. He wanted to put things right.

This book is about whether it worked