Water voles were once common and widespread in Britain but over the last fifty years there have been many changes in our countryside. A national survey of waterside locations undertaken in 1989/90 found water voles to have declined since the early 1900s by nearly two thirds.
The rate of this decline was also increasing and a follow-up survey found this figure to have reached a staggering 94% by the year 2000. We now have just one water vole for every twenty that were alive just 80 years ago! Why is this? Well, it is down to mainly four factors: destruction of natural river banks; increase in river bank mowing resulting in poor quality habitat; degrading of bank-side habitat through increased use by livestock and predation by American mink. The latter can wipe out whole colonies of water voles in a matter of months and have accelerated the rate of decline in the past few decades.
Wasing are working in conjunction with BBONT and English Nature to help trap the mink that prey on the voles. We ensure that livestock do not degrade our river banks (as well as other river bank restoration measures); and we limit our mowing. We hope that Ratty will be with us for years to come!
