Action Plan: Water Vole

Water voles were formerly common on many inland waterways in this country but are now one of the UK's fastest declining mammals. As with many native species the British water vole population has probably been declining throughout the 20th century, due to changes in agricultural practices and habitat destruction. However, since the 1960’s this deterioration in the population has been dramatically increased by predation from introduced North American mink (Mustela vison), first recorded breeding in this country in 1957. In addition to mink, water voles are known to be predated by fox, domestic cat, otter, stoat and grey heron. It has also been subject to further decline due to being mistaken for brown rats.

Water voles are active during the day, they are efficient swimmers and divers and depending on habitat quality males can occupy a linear home range of over 100 metres.