Conservationists are losing their battle to halt the decline of some of Britain's best-loved species, according to a new report.
Commissioned by the People's Trust for Endangered Species and produced by experts at Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, the study looks back at a decade in which the charity has spent more than £1 million ($2 million) to save British mammals - with mixed results.
Certain species such as red squirrels, hedgehogs, Scottish wildcats and harvest mice have declined due to factors such as habitat loss and invasive species out-competing native ones for food. And, in the case of the red squirrel, numbers have been reduced by their disease-spreading grey competitors.
But it is not all bad news. There have been successes in increasing populations of otters, bats and water voles, which have defied the odds to survive at all.
The bigger picture shows grounds for optimism, according to the 2011 State of Britain's Mammals study: "Although many of Britain's mammals apparently declined significantly in the past 25 years, some appear to have stabilised or even increased in the last decade. Of the 25 monitored mammal species native to Britain, half are either stable (not necessarily in a good state) or increasing."