Will you throw a lifeline to the Water Vole?

The chubby-faced water vole with its small, hidden ears and silky, dark brown fur was once a common sight along Cheshire's rivers and streams. It is now Britain's fastest declining mammal and desperately needs your help.

Here at Cheshire Wildlife Trust, as part of the North West Lowland Water Vole Project, we've just succeeded in securing funding* to appoint a Water Vole Project Officer for three years and now we need your help to ensure real progress in saving the water vole from extinction.

The job of the Water Vole Project Officer will be to survey for water vole activity in Cheshire, to monitor population trends, to record the presence of the water vole's biggest predator, American mink, and to provide support and equipment for a network of skilled volunteers.

But, if we are to rescue Cheshire's water voles, we must also take the next step of pr actical habitat restoration, re-creation and management on our own nature reserves and on land where we have partnerships and influence with the landowners. This work is urgently required.

The Government has recognised the plight of the water vole and in April the species gained extra protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. Will you too give your support to this vulnerable creature?

We need to raise £12,000 to carry out the habitat work.

The water vole is established in the minds of many of us as “Ratty” in Wind in the Willows. In the 100 years since that book was written the world of the water vole has been turned upside down.

American mink that have escaped from fur farms are a devastating predator of water voles. Mink are very able swimmers and follow water voles into the water. The female mink is just small enough to enter the water vole burrows, leaving the vole with no refuge.

Changes in farming and flood control over recent years have resulted in the loss of habitat.

Many people, including pest controllers, builders and developers, mistake water voles for brown rats and accidentally poison them or disturb their homes. This happens even though the water vole is easily identified by its blunt nose, almost hidden ears and its furry tale.

Since 1990 water vole numbers in the UK have plummeted from just over seven million to fewer than one million today. In Cheshire, we have experienced similar overall declines. Information is patchy, but we do know water voles are present on a number of our reserves including Hockenhull Platts, Sean Hawkins Meadow, Gowy Meadows, Saltersley Moss, Danes Moss, Swettenham Meadows and Bickley Hall Farm.

The work of our Water Vole Project Officer will be invaluable in establishing the precise numbers. However, in order to help the small populations to expand, disperse and re-colonise the county's wetlands we must urgently institute a programme of targeted practical habitat restoration. We want to create well-connected, good quality habitat that is secured from American mink, in partnership with landowners and the Environment Agency. With your help we can do it.

Thankfully, water voles have fairly simple requirements: slow, deep water; stable water levels; banks for burrowing and lush vegetation. They respond quickly to habitat improvements and will readily colonise newly created wetland habitats.

This is one case of species decline which we really all can help to reverse. Your gift will enable us to do something positive for the beleaguered water vole.

Yours sincerely,

Jacki Hulse
Head of Estates and Land Management

ps: If we fail to help the water vole at this critical time there is a very real fear that it will become extinct in our lifetime , so please be as generous as you can.

* Funding partners are SITA Enriching Nature, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Greater Manchester Ecology Unit, United Utilities and the Environment Agency.