Wanted: children to rear harvest mice at home for wild release in Devon

Children in Devon are being invited to become “citizen captive breeders”, rearing harvest mice at home for release into the wild to help revive endangered nature.

Wild Pets, a new conservation project launched by two 14-year-old friends, is seeking 20 Devon-based children to rear hundreds of mice after the duo’s own successful restoration efforts.

Eva Wishart and Emily Smith bred several hundred harvest mice in tanks in their garages and released them on a nature reserve in Devon, south-west England, where the mice have begun breeding in the wild again.

The tiny harvest mouse, the UK’s smallest native rodent, is the only British mammal to have a prehensile tail, which can grasp or hold objects. It uses its tail to clamber up grass stems, which were once commonplace in fields, meadows and scrubland but have become far more scarce because of agricultural intensification.

Eva founded Wild Pets after feeling sorry for traditional pets such as hamsters and goldfish that are confined to cages and small spaces, while also worrying about the extinction crisis and ecological collapse. She began breeding harvest mice aged 10.

“I took them to school once to do a talk when I was 10,” she said. “It was the most popular I’ve ever been and everyone voted that we should keep them. So then we kept them in school in a big tank in the corner for six weeks. It was great. They had loads of babies.”

In 2025 her Wild Pets project was a runner-up in Prince William’s junior Earthshot competition, with crowdfunding supporting the first harvest mouse release.

Advised by the ecologist and rewilder Derek Gow, who has managed long-running captive-breeding programmes for water voles, beavers, storks and other mammals and birds, Eva and Emily last year released hundreds of captive-bred mice into a nature reserve.

The new population survived and maternal nests – distinctive grass balls expertly woven and suspended in tussocky grassland or scrub by the females – were found on the reserve this year. Chris Packham called the Wild Pets concept “truly sensational” on BBC’s Springwatch.

The expanded project, supported by Gow, the Devon Environment Foundation, Mid Devon district council and the Naturesave Trust, is seeking applications from children aged eight to 13, who can apply via the Wild Pets website.

Eva said young wild breeders would require a certain sense of “responsibility but most of all, really, enthusiasm, because if you’re really enthusiastic and passionate about something, with a bit of help, you’ll probably do it. Mainly we’re just looking for passionate kids.”

Wild Pets will provide a pair of harvest mice and all the equipment after a training day next spring at Gow’s Rewilding Coombeshead centre in Devon. The children will breed the mice, which can have multiple litters over the summer, with the aim of releasing 250 next September.

Emily said taking even modest action to help wildlife alleviated feelings of anxiety about environmental destruction. “It definitely makes you feel a lot better in the long run. It just makes you feel like you’re actually doing something rather than just watching it all happen,” she said.

Eva added: “Everything’s really scary at the moment for our future, on the news and at school. Everything’s very dark. So doing something, even if it’s only a tiny thing in a tiny corner of Devon, helps us feel a bit better.”

Packham said: “It’s so inspirational when young people think of an idea and then make it happen. It’s so, so important. What I like about young people doing things is that they think clearly, speak clearly and they get things done. Top work Eva and Emily. This is a really brilliant, brilliant project.”

The founders of Wild Pets hope to expand the wild breeding programmes to other small native species that should be more commonplace in Britain such as common lizards, stag beetles, mole crickets and glowworms.

Eva said: “In the first year we’re just inspiring 20 kids, but then, next year, we’re going to inspire the whole country to become conservationists and care about the natural world.”