Rutland and North Northamptonshire: Mink Control Project Officer

The Waterlife Recovery Trust

The Trust is a charity, registered in 2022, with origins in the Waterlife Recovery East (WRE)
project. WRE started in 2019 when partners from the long running East Anglian Mink and Water
Vole Group joined with others from the fields of wildlife conservation, water management, game
shooting and fishing. All shared the goal of bringing life back to the waterways and wetlands
of East Anglia, through the removal of one highly damaging invasive, non-native species: the
American Mink Neogale vison.

The original WRE project had three linked objectives:

• to humanely control mink throughout East Anglia,
• to see if eradication was possible at a wide geographical scale,
• to develop and spread the use of best practice for mink control.

Underpinning this was the vision that an effective model could be developed which could then be
used to promote mink control, and ultimately eradication, throughout Great Britain. The
Waterlife Recovery Trust was formed to help make this vision a reality by facilitating the
development of a ‘family’ of catchment-based mink projects working throughout the country.

With support from our partners and hundreds of citizen scientist volunteers we have been able
to show that eradication is achievable using trapping alone. We now need to encourage others to
be part of the family and together roll out best practice across the country.

Job Overview

A full time, fixed term, post is available for a period finishing on 31 March 2025, to help
deliver the vision of a ‘mink free GB’. The employer is the Waterlife Recovery Trust, and the
post is part funded by a grant from Natural England. If follow-on funding is secured, the
post may be renewable. The purpose of the post is to remove invasive American mink from an
area centred on the northern half of the River Witham catchment. It is part of a project
stretching from the Thames to Lincolnshire*, to protect endangered water voles and other native
wildlife and allow their populations to recover. The post-holder will develop a mink control
network across ‘their area’ using ‘smart’ mink traps monitored by volunteers. The project will
use adaptive management techniques to maximise efficiency; the ‘best practice’ for humane mink
trapping developed to date is detailed on the WRT website.

The post will be home-based, in a location that is appropriate for the objective. The Project
Officer (PO) will be expected to use their own vehicle for travel and moving equipment but
receive a mileage rate for doing so. Flexibility in working hours will be key; this is not a
9-5 weekday office job. Although POs will not be expected to exceed 40 hours a week on average,
some weeks will be busier than others. At least a few minutes of web-based work will be needed
every day, including at weekends, to support volunteers with any problems and to ensure that
our work is always carried out to the highest animal welfare standards.

All necessary training will be provided.

*The Project Area is an area of some 8600 km2 (about 10.2 % of England) in an arc around
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. It includes all or part of the counties of Essex, Greater
London, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, and Lincolnshire.

How to apply

More information on the Trust, the roles, and how to apply is available from our website.