Ratty's back

Hundreds of water voles are to released into British rivers in a bid to save one of the country's smallest mammals

And the rest of Ratty's species would soon follow, warned conservationists. But a massive effort is being mounted that promises to save the creature made famous by Kenneth Grahame's classic novel.

Hundreds of water voles will be released in June in the biggest reintroduction of the species in Britain. "We are on our way to seeing a return of water voles across the UK," said Chris Strachan of the Environment Agency.

Ratty's return is being launched from the banks of the river Monnow in Herefordshire. More than 500 water voles will be introduced to the river - the first time an entire community has been created. Should all go well with the £1.1m scheme, led by the Game Conservancy Trust, it will be repeated across the country.

"The whole purpose of this project is to provide a blueprint for reintroductions elsewhere and to release water voles into areas where they have become extinct," said Jonathan Reynolds of the trust.

The hope is that the water vole population will return to the buoyant levels seen when Grahame wrote The Wind in the Willows in 1908. Then there were more than eight million of them, but that figure has plummeted.

The last national survey showed that they had been lost from 94 per cent of sites they inhabited in the 1980s and 1990s. The main culprit has been the American mink, a non-native species that has escaped from fur farms.

HAPPY RETURNS

OTTER Brought to the brink of extinction in the 1970s by agricultural pesticides contaminating fish stocks. Has made a comeback across Britain in recent years.

BEAVER Long extinct in Britain, but plans are afoot to reintroduce it in Scotland and the North. Already thriving in penned enclosures, and a full release would mark a stunning return.

DORMOUSE Immortalised as the sleepy creature in Alice in Wonderland. Became extinct across most of England, but in the past few years there have been signs of recovery in the South.

HARE Hunting and habitat loss led to a 75 per cent decline in their numbers by the 1990s. Conservationists aim to double the UK hare population to around two million by 2010.