Public urged to help with water vole survey

People in Devon are being urged to take part in a national survey of water voles by a wildlife charity.

The People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) is looking for volunteers for its National Water Vole Monitoring Programme, which runs until 15 June.

Emily Luck, water vole officer at PTES said the "vole-unteers" would be asked to pick from a series of set walks and look for signs of water voles, such as burrows and "green and brown tic-tac-shaped" droppings.

Ms Luck said the survey would "help guide conservation work".

Ms Luck said the guinea pig-sized rodents, sometimes called water rats, were "one of the UK's most-charming little mammals".

Water voles were thought to be extinct in the county as recently as the early 2000s.

At one stage the species would have been found on "almost all rivers and waterways" but its population had declined by about 90% since the 1970s, giving it the "sad" title of Britain's fastest-declining mammal, Ms Luck said.

As well as habitat loss caused by agriculture, one of the biggest reasons for the water vole's decline was "predation and habitat loss" by the American mink - a non-native species introduced by the fur trade.

However, Devon has seen several projects in recent years to reintroduce the aquatic mammals to the county's rivers, wetlands and marshes.

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