Water vole spotters asked to report sightings online

ELUSIVE: The water vole

‘We have lots of gaps on our distribution maps'

October 2011: Wildlife spotters are being urged to get online and report sightings of the UK's fastest-declining mammal, the water vole.

The country has lost nine out of ten water voles in recent decades due to habitat loss and predation by American mink. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Manchester and North Merseyside has teamed up with Merseyside BioBank and started an initiative to enable members of the public to log water vole records online in order to help with important conservation work.

Water vole project officer Katie Milburn said: ‘The whole point is that to be able to conserve the species we need accurate data on their current distribution.

Please share your information
‘We have got maps of distribution but we have got lots of gaps. At the moment people are spotting them when they go on walks or are lucky enough to see them at the bottom of their garden, but they are keeping the information to themselves and we would like them to share it with us.'

As well as seeing water voles themselves, other evidence of water voles includes their latrines, burrows and feeding remains. Water voles and their field signs can be seen within and along the banksides of waterbodies such as ponds, ditches, lakes, streams, rivers, canals and wetlands.

Voles can be mistaken for brown rats but you can identify a vole by its chubby face with blunt nose, small ears almost hidden in fur, rich, chestnut brown colour, tail covered with fine hairs or the 'plop' sound as it enters the water.

The water vole breeding season is from March to September and so only burrows and occasional sightings will be evident outside this period.

To report sightings, including photos if you have them, visit http://www.lancswt.org.uk/index.php/water-voles.php