‘They’re beautiful’: 13-year-olds lead audacious project to save harvest mice in Devon

Doing somersaults in the corner of a field in Devon this week were the fluffy results of an audacious wildlife project by two 13-year-old girls.

Best friends Eva Wishart and Emily Smith had become devoted to harvest mice, and were upset, a couple of years ago, to find out the species is threatened in England due to farming practices and habitat loss.

The two girls took matters into their own hands and decided to replenish local harvest mice stocks themselves. In the two years since, they have bred dozens of the tiny rodents in their garages and on Wednesday they released 250 of them into a nature reserve near Wishart’s home.