How 23,000 edible dormice became a problem for Britain

dormouseRepresentative image from Canva In 1902, a small population of edible dormice was released at Tring Park, a private estate in Hertfordshire, as part of a Victorian-era fascination with exotic wildlife. More than a century later, that single introduction has grown into a national problem: by 2018, the Mammal Society estimated around 23,000 edible dormice lived in the UK, mostly in the Chiltern Hills. Today, the UK government pays land managers £40 per hectare per year under a Countryside Stewardship scheme to control these invasive rodents, which strip bark from trees, damage fruit crops and predate hole-nesting birds, according to official reports from GOV.UK. Read on to know more about it here:From estate curiosity to invasive speciesThe edible dormouse (Glis glis) is native to continental Europe and parts of Asia, not the British Isles. It was first introduced to the UK in 1902 at Tring Park in Hertfordshire, where it was kept in a semi-wild state on the estate. Over the following decades, some individuals escaped or were deliberately released, establishing a free-living population in nearby woodlands.Unlike many introduced species that fade away, edible dormice thrived. ...