Habitat aid for threatened mammal

Water voles are often mistaken for rats

A conservation project is expanding in part of north east Wales to safeguard the water vole population.

The small mammal could become extinct in parts of the region within the next 10 years because of habitat loss and the introduction of a predator.

The project, which has run over the last two years in the Wheeler Valley, Denbighshire, helps landowners manage and enhance suitable habitat for them.

Denbighshire council officers said they wanted to create a vole stronghold.

This once common inhabitant of our waterways, immortalised as Ratty in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, has been rapidly declining and is no longer present in more than 90% of the sites it occupied 100 years ago.

Kate Taylor, Denbighshire council's biodiversity officer, said habitat loss, pollution and degradation had all been contributing factors, but the greatest threat to water voles came from a non native predator - the American mink.

WATER VOLE FACTS They are the largest British vole and are often mistaken for a rat Their lifespan is up to two years Water voles have dark fur, a round body and a short, fat face. They have a long, fur-covered tail In the Cairngorm area of Scotland the species still occurs in considerable numbers Water voles inhabit the banks of ditches, dykes, slow-moving rivers and streams, and grassland They are vegetarian and feed mainly on grasses and other plant material Source: BBC Science and Nature website

"It is a very invasive species," she said.

"It has been released from fur farms in the main. Because it doesn't have anything which naturally pre-dates it or keeps it in control as it does in America, it has been able to spread.

"They breed very rapidly. Their ecology means they can colonise big areas very quickly and it is a very voracious predator not just of voles but ground nesting birds as well."

Due to the landscape of the Wheeler Valley, which is a special feature of the Clwydian range Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), it was identified as an area likely to have surviving water vole populations.

The two year project to protect the water vole has seen areas of the valley surveyed to establish where they are.

It has also worked with landowners to manage and enhance suitable habitat for them.

In addition, mink traps have been set in the area.

"We know we have got a couple of little pockets of water voles, but not big populations," said Ms Taylor.

The intention is to expand the project so that the Wheeler Valley can become a stronghold for the water vole, and link up the currently isolated populations, she said.