A wildlife charity is calling for volunteers across Northumberland to log sightings of water voles during April, May and June.

The callout is part of the National Water Vole Monitoring Programme, which helps conservationists find where voles are living and where these small rodents are most in need of help.

This comes in the final year of the ‘Restoring Ratty’ project at Kielder Water and Forest Park, where the largest vole re-introduction in the UK has been taking place since 2016.

Katy Barke, Living Landscapes Project Manager at Northumberland Wildlife Trust, said: “Before the Restoring Ratty Project we knew that there weren’t any water voles at Kielder.

She continued: “We now have a population of water voles at Kielder and there is ongoing work to protect that. With the monitoring programme, it’s massively clear that without the intervention of the Restoring Ratty project, they wouldn’t be there – and it’s really cool to see our work has paid off.”

Though Restoring Ratty is coming to an end, a new project is starting across the North East. Naturally Native, a collaboration between Northumberland, Durham, and Tees Valley Wildlife Trust with funding from the National Lottery, hopes to further encourage water vole populations to expand in size and range along with the removal of the rodent’s most threatening invasive predator – American Mink.

The area will have to be continuously monitored for American Mink for the water vole to flourish. Katie said: “If we take our eye off the ball and mink come into the area where the voles are, we are back to square one. We need to defend that population.”

Henrietta Pringle, Key Species Monitoring & Data Officer at PTES, said: “Water voles are Britain’s fastest declining mammal – a staggering 90% of the population was lost between the 1980s and 1990s alone - so they really need our help. Due to lockdown last spring, we were unable to survey water voles, meaning we now have a gap in our dataset.

She continued: “Despite the shocking statistics, knowing the reasons behind the decline means it’s in our power to reverse it. By restoring bankside vegetation and connecting patches of existing habitat across the landscape, water voles can be successfully encouraged to return to our waterways. With the help of the public this spring, we hope to better understand where water voles are living so we can best protect them – and hopefully, one day they will become a common sight on our riverbanks again.”

The National Water Vole Monitoring Programme is running from April 15 to June 15. More information can be found at https://ptes.org/get-involved/surveys/countryside-2/national-water-vole-monitoring-programme/