Animal welfare must be exemplary in a project like this, and is one of the major reasons for carrying out the work. Due to human actions, introduced American mink have killed millions of native animals in Britain, causing pain and suffering to each prey creature they attack. The WRE project aims to bring an end to this carnage. But the respect for animal welfare must extend as much to the predator as the prey, and the electronic alarms fitted to our traps ensure that this project will exceed the standards of welfare rightly demanded by the Westminster, Welsh and Scottish Governments for trapping operations. Under current regimes, over a thousand American mink are killed annually in Britain, and if nothing changes, this will continue indefinitely as nature reserve managers, game and fishing organisations continue to protect their sites from mink, which will continue to invade from the unmanaged population of mink in the wider countryside. A short-term increase in mink trapping, using a more effective large-scale approach, will result in far fewer mink deaths overall and a permanent end to the need for mink culling.
