大象传媒

Water voles were fairly common in the North York Moors as recently as the 1980s but they are now very rare and the North York Moors National Park Authority has joined forces with the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission and the National Trust to try to increase the remaining populations.

Water voles favour slow-flowing watercourses and ponds alongside boggy areas with tall, tussocky vegetation to provide cover and protection from predators as well as food.

Marshes

The Authority鈥檚 Conservation Volunteers have been fencing ponds and ditches to restore marginal vegetation, digging small shallow ponds within marshes to provide some open water habitat and helping with ongoing maintenance work to keep marshes and streams clear of conifer saplings and debris.

The rapid decrease in the number of water voles nationally is attributed to a decline in wetland habitats. Land drainage, dense planting of trees and grazing right up to the edges of watercourses and ponds leaves little space for wildlife.

Mink

The mink population, (an American species which escaped into the wild) is also a big contributing factor in some areas as these mammals prey on water voles.

Polly Thomson, Ecology Officer with the National Park Authority, said: 鈥淲ater voles are shy but endearing creatures popularised by the fictional character Ratty in Kenneth Graham鈥檚 Wind in the Willows.

Unfortunately they are now critically endangered in Britain which is why they are on our Biodiversity Action Plan as a species in need of priority action.

Volunteer working on the Moors

The volunteers have done a great job in improving conditions for the National Park鈥檚 remaining water voles and will also play a part in helping us to monitor the populations so that we can see over the next few years whether the numbers increase.鈥�

Butterfly

The work will have a beneficial effect on the whole wetland environment as tussocky fringes to watercourses slow down the flow of water into them, reducing the amount of silt they receive and the rate at which water levels rise during heavy rain.

It can also increase populations of other endangered species such as the small pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly.