2018 Water vole update National Water Vole Monitoring Programme update

warm welcome to those volunteers A very special thank you to the volunteers Water voles have a new Champion who took part for the first time this who monitor these sites, as this data is year and thank you for getting crucial in enabling us to find out how A We’re pleased to let you know that Ratty your sites surveyed and data entered so water voles are currently faring and to has a new friend in Parliament. The Rt. efficiently. And to all you wonderful detect any future changes. Hon Hilary Benn MP, Chair of the volunteers who’ve taken part for a number Distribution of sites Exiting the European Union Select of years (especially those of you who’ve Of the 146 sites monitored, 63 had water Committee, has become MP Species been with us since the monitoring vole field signs, five sites had just burrows Champion for water voles. He joins The programme started) thank you for all the present and 78 had no signs at all (map 2, Rt. Hon Chris Grayling MP, Secretary of hard work and time you put in to overleaf). Of the 60 VWT sites surveyed, State for Transport, who signed up as monitoring your site/s and submitting only eight had water voles detected at hedgehog species champion last year your data, we really couldn’t do this survey them, while 55 of the registered sites had and The Rt. Hon Matt Hancock MP, without you. water vole signs present. Secretary of State for Health and Social This year 146 sites were surveyed across Care, who recently agreed to champion Once again England had the largest the UK. This is slightly down on the hazel dormice. The role of a species number of sites surveyed (123), followed number of sites surveyed last year but the champion is to learn about their by Scotland (17), then Wales (five). While geographic coverage of sites surveyed adopted species, champion its cause in England had the most positive sites (56), was still great, covering all corners of the public and in Parliament, and work to Wales had the highest percentage of UK. Of the sites surveyed, 60 were sites enhance its protection in their positive sites, with 80% of sites surveyed surveyed in the previous national surveys constituencies. PTES is supporting all having water voles present. However, run by The Vincent Wildlife Trust (VWT) three MPs by briefing them about caution does need to be taken when and 86 were sites registered with the developments and alerting them to interpreting this, as the number of sites programme (map 1, overleaf). opportunities where they can help. surveyed in Wales was rather small. You Find out more about the Species Fourteen of the VWT sites checked this can read about the monitoring taking Champion project at www.buglife.org. year hadn’t been monitored since the place at two of the Welsh sites on page 3. uk/specieschampions 1990s and 15 new sites were registered How we use the NWVMP data with the programme. 17 of the VWT sites Each year our data is analysed by a have now been surveyed in all four years. statistician and this analysis forms the

© Mark Bridger / Shutterstock Bridger © Mark 01 basis of this update. As the NWVMP is Water vole detection dogs only a few years old, we have refrained from producing a national report until we Earlier this year we met a new recruit to water vole conservation – Hettie the cocker have enough data to be confident in what spaniel from Conservation K9 Consultancy! She is currently being trained and we it is showing. We’re hopeful that by the had a live demonstration of her in action. Hettie follows in the paw prints of Stig end of next year, when the programme the springer spaniel (who was the first water vole will have been running for five years, we’ll detection dog) and Lola the Sproker spaniel, both be able to produce a report. It will from Ecology Dogs. As dogs are quick, efficient, non-biased and non-invasive, they provide a highlight what has happened since the fantastic tool for detecting water voles at sites with last national surveys and what the data limited access or difficult terrain. shows since the monitoring programme started, at both a national and country You can find out more about the work these dogs level. do at www.conservationk9consultancy.com and www.ecologydogs.co.uk The NWVMP dataset is shared with the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Atlas annually (the dataset has been we’d like to increase the number of sites downloaded over 120 times in the last 12 surveyed next year. If your current site months). It is also shared with the National isn’t suitable for water voles and you’d Hettie and her trainer Water Vole Database and Mapping Project prefer to survey another site, then you’re (who recently produced a report which welcome to either have a look online to included our NWVMP data. A copy of this see if any of the other pre-selected sites can be found at www.wildlifetrusts.org/ near you are available or register another national-water-vole-database- waterway in your area with the mapping-project. We also share the data monitoring programme. For more with Local Environmental Records information about registering a site, Centres so it can be used for decision please visit www.ptes.org/watervoles. making at a local level, as well as with Please do get in touch if you have any other NGOs and researchers. questions at [email protected] Plans for next year The extended survey period will continue next year, so your surveys can start from the 15th April. The final day will be 15th June. We’ll send out an email at the end of March to remind you of the dates. Ideally

Map 1 Map 2 Contains Ordance Survey data © Crown Copyright and database right 2018 right and database Copyright © Crown data Survey Ordance Contains Tales from the PTES mammal grants update Since 1997 we’ve awarded grants to 45 water vole projects, totalling £270k. Currently we have three water vole riverbank projects. We’re supporting The Glasgow Water Vole Project which is This year we’ve had some lovely updates from monitors investigating the ecology, spatial around the country which we want to share with you. movements and habitat use of a very unusual population of grassland Monitors at Gwent Wildlife Trust (GWT) debrief. In the days after the survey, I’ll dwelling water voles, as well as their have submitted data from their Magor digitise the survey forms and input the response to habitat management Marsh Nature Reserve to the NWVMP data into our GIS database, allowing us to techniques. since 2015. Lowri Watkins, GWT Water see how the signs look spatially. Next I’ll log Vole Project Officer, describes a typical onto to the PTES website and upload the We’re also funding Suffolk Wildlife Trust survey at their site. results there too. Come September we’ll to evaluate the effect of 15 years of mink repeat our survey, when I hope to find even control on water vole numbers in In 2012, GWT reintroduced over more signs and evidence of a successful Suffolk, and we’re part funding the 200 water voles to our Magor breeding season and maybe even National Water Vole Database and Marsh Nature Reserve on the Gwent a live water vole or two! Mapping Project which is managed by Levels, returning them to a landscape in The Wildlife Trusts. which they would have once flourished. Local ecologist Chloe Griffiths launched We’ve been monitoring our population The Nature of our Village project in around 90%. The Aberystwyth area ever since, surveying ten transects twice a Penparcau near Aberystwyth in West population is one of the few that has year. These surveys help us assess relative Wales, in 2015. The project set out to managed to hang on. We’ll continue our population numbers - how the population increase how much was known about the checking for three more years, and hope to has fared over winter and how successful local wildlife and here she gives an provide plenty more data about the breeding season has been. As well as update on how the project is progressing. our wonderful Welsh water voles. taking stock of numbers, the survey results also reveal distribution and We wanted to provide a new Wendy from Dorset contacted us earlier densities across the site, which help to generation of people with the this year as she was concerned about inform our management priorities. skills to recognise and record wildlife on the management of her local stretch of their doorstep. Understanding nature and We plan our survey for early May, giving river. After registering her site with the the threats it faces is the first step to doing the water voles a head start, but not late monitoring programme she got in touch something to protect it. We joined the enough that vegetation gets in our way. with the local Environment Agency and NWVMP in 2015, and discovered we were We use the survey to train new volunteers, was able to meet with them to discuss the one of only five sites in Wales with positive allowing them hands-on experience and management of the river. They agreed not results, and the only one that wasn’t to contribute to an important project. to clear the bank three times a year but to already a National Key Site for the species. stagger it to give time for the vegetation We start our day with a presentation We realised then how much our to recover and Wendy was asked to about water vole ecology and signs, and monitoring mattered. become their contact for this section of then split into groups and head off to the When we resurveyed in 2016 and 2017, we river. Wendy got in touch to let us know first of our ditches, long sticks to hand. In found signs of active latrines with trampled that ‘they would not have listened or met small groups we move along the transect, droppings (a good sign of breeding with me if I hadn’t been doing the vole leap-frogging each other as we search activity) and pieces of rushes neatly survey!’ This is fantastic news and we look every metre or so along the bank. We chopped off at an angle of 45 degrees (a forward to hearing what effect this new won’t have gone far before we find our first sure sign of water vole feeding). Last year regime has on the resident water voles signs. We continue on with renewed we were lucky enough to even see an over the coming months. energy; the trainees are keen to spot signs animal coming out of a burrow, although it for themselves and we usually end up If you have a story from your site, did disappear quickly when it saw us all crowning one lucky individual our ‘Chief please do get in touch at staring at it! Dropping Spotter’. [email protected] This is fantastic news, as water voles have After completing all the ditches, we suffered a massive national decline of reassemble back at the centre for a

Volunteers in Gwent, left, and Aberystwyth, right. Thank you for all your hard work! You can find out more about the Gwent Levels Water Vole Project at www.gwentwildlife.org/what-we- do/projects/water-vole-project The Nature of our Village project Village our of The Nature The Nature of our Village project is supported by Penparcau Community Forum, West Wales Biodiversity Information Centre and The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales. © David Lucas and Lucas © David 03 Jeffries, HelenBooth, Andrew Jeffries, Alan Ottewell. Photo credits, clockwise from top left Ashleigh Cooper, Andrew It’s great to receive photos from your surveys, to see how varied the survey sites are and the evidence of water voles and other species living there. This year we had some fabulous photos of water vole field signs (including a cheeky chappy peeking out of his burrow) as well as some beautiful site photos and evidence of otters.

Otter print

Feeding signs

And finally, you may have seen on social media that we recently produced this lovely infographic highlighting what we’ve been able to achieve for water voles over the last twenty years with the help of our supporters and volunteers.

Thank you again for taking part in the National Water Vole Monitoring Programme this year and we hope you can take part again in 2019.

Best wishes,

Emily Thomas NWVMP

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