Meet Ian White: PTES’ dormouse officer

In this series, we chat to the dedicated staff members, conservation partners and volunteers at PTES. We find out why each of them chose a career in wildlife conservation, what they find rewarding about their work and what they love most about what they do.

Ian White

Dormouse Officer at PTES

You’ve been involved with
dormice at PTES for 18 years.
Where did it all start and what
has kept you involved for so long?

I’ve always had an interest in the natural
world but after university I headed into
the world of business and only moved
into the conservation sector later in
life after retraining – at which point
I developed a keen interest in small
mammal populations. We might think of
mice, shrews and voles being common,
but are they? We actually have no idea,
as there is no long-term monitoring
programme for any of these species
except the hazel dormice.

So, I started becoming more interested in dormice as a species, as a key indicator of high quality habitat and as an ambassador for wildlife. They fascinated me when I first saw one and they fascinate me still.

What is the state of the UK’s dormouse population and what has had the most impact on their numbers over the past 10 years?

A report by PTES in 2023 said that dormice had declined by 70% since the year 2000 and they had been lost from 20 English counties over the past century. The major reasons for the decline are due to changes in how we have managed our woodlands over the past hundred years or so, the isolation of woodlands in the landscape, either by hedgerow removal or inappropriate hedge management, and climate change, which seems to be having an increasingly negative impact on dormice. In addition, the steady increase in the number of deer and grey squirrels in the countryside are also having a negative impact on dormice. And it’s not just dormice, many species are declining and as a nation it is something we need to address unless we are happy for our children and grandchildren to inherit an ecologically impoverished island.

In terms of habitats, what is the one thing in terms of how we manage our land in this country, that we could do differently that would have the greatest impact for dormice?

Hazel dormice have long been associated with hazel coppice and this method of woodland management is very beneficial for dormice, as well as a broad range of other species. But to be economically viable, coppice needs to be productive, which it can be, but often there are very limited markets for coppice product. It is also challenging to manage coppice at a scale where the management regime is both beneficial to wildlife and commercially viable. And to coppice purely for conservation is expensive. Hazel dormice are a species that occupy successional scrub – the shrubby plants that grow back when you cut the canopy to allow light to the woodland floor and manage the deer to reduce the browsing pressure. Where do we see well developed and well-connected areas of successional scrub? Generally not in woodland. More likely to be on roadsides, rail sides and hedgerows. These are the habitats that we need to manage well to give dormice a sanctuary they can live in until they are able to begin to reoccupy the wider countryside.

If you had a magic wand, what would be the one thing you’d wish for to make the UK a better place for dormice?

Communication. If the politicians could talk to the planners, the constructors to the conservationists and the engineers to the ecologists so that we could all understand what the others were trying to do and find compromises. We should be able to work with our native flora and fauna to make things better not just for dormice but for other species as well. We should embrace our natural heritage, not fight it.

If you could flag one career highlight over that time, what would it be?

In 2015 we did some work to test whether a specific design of a wildlife bridge would be used by dormice. We had dormice on the structure within nine hours. Over the following season we demonstrated
that dormice where more likely to use our bridge rather that crossing a gap on the ground. As a result of that work I was invited to present the bridge project and the outcomes to a conference in Japan (we had copied their bridge design) and spent two weeks in the country looking at the conservation work they were doing to help protect their indigenous species, the Japanese dormouse.

Are there things small landowners can do to make their land more welcoming for dormice?

Dormice are an arboreal species which means they live in the tree and shrub canopy. They will live in the tree canopy but are more likely to be found in the shrubby understory. So for all landowners, not just small ones, the advice is to maintain species diversity, shrubby connective corridors both within a woodland and beyond. Within a woodland, that could be done by appropriate ride management, beyond a wood that could be done by having diverse, well-structured hedgerows. And bramble is both your friend and the dormouse friend as, with light, it can quickly form scrub banks to connect other areas and for dormice (and lots of other things) it has a long flowering and fruiting season for food and lots of secure nesting sites.

Best dormouse moment?

About 10 years ago I received a letter from Daisy, a five year old girl who lived in Yorkshire. She loved dormice, she did a school project, she drew posters she put up in her window and she wanted to see a dormouse. Could we help? This was tricky as there are no known native dormouse populations of dormice in Yorkshire. But we had done a dormouse reintroduction to a Yorkshire wood in 2008 and we managed to arrange for her to visit that site with me, a local ranger and a chaperone (she got special permission from her school to be absent for the day). She had a fabulous day and who knows, perhaps she will become the next Daisy Attenborough.

Questions and answers originally published in Somerset Wildlife Trust Magazine 2024.

Header image credit Saguari | shutterstock.com