Elegy For a River: Whiskers, Claws and Conservation's Last, Wild Hope

Water voles are small, brownish, bewhiskered, and charming. Once they were a ubiquitous part of our waterways, but now they are nearly gone. This book is about a conservationist's wild hope to bring them back and the lessons he learnt. It is a book for anyone who has watched ripples spread on lazy waters and wondered what moves beneath.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 24 March 2022
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd

A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE WEEK:
Particularly enjoyable Somehow laugh-out-loud funny - passionate, warm and full of fascinating insights into the eccentric world of the field naturalist.
- Isabella Tree, author of Wilding
Water voles are small, brownish, bewhiskered and charming. Made famous by Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, once they were a ubiquitous part of our waterways. They were a totem of our rivers. Now, however, they are nearly gone. This is their story, and the story of a conservationist with a wild hope: that he could bring them back.
Tom Moorhouse spent eleven years beside rivers, fens, canals, lakes and streams, researching British wildlife. Quite a lot of it tried to bite him. He studied four main species - two native and endangered, two invasive and endangering - beginning with water voles. He wanted to solve their conservation problems. He wanted to put things right.
This book is about whether it worked, and what he learnt - and about what those lessons mean, not just for water voles but for all the world s wildlife. It is a book for anyone who has watched ripples spread on lazy waters, and wondered what moves beneath. Or who has waited in quiet hope for a rustle in the reeds, the munch of a stem, or the patter of unseen paws.
Praise for Tom Moorhouse:
The pages of this book are shot through with quicksilver light reflected from wet fur - not a lament for our rivers but a chorus of hope for their future.
- Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path
Beautiful and important. Tom s book is extraordinary in its gentle curiosity and sympathy for his subjects. I love this book.
- Sir Tim Smit, Executive Vice-Chairman and Co-founder of the Eden Project
Terrific. Lightly but beautifully written. Very moving. Water voles are adorable li.

Weight: 194g
Dimension: 129 x 197 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781529176728