Space for water voles


Raty in The Wind in the Willows is not a rat but a water vole. He is also a poet, a dreamer and a waterman. Here he is talking about the river: “It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing. Lord! The times we’ve had together…” You can interpret this as Raty’s plea for connectivity,


for not breaking up the system of waterways on which water voles depend for their lives. But we have dredged them and concreted them, polluted them and generally bullied them, until it’s a wonder they’re able to support any life at all. Now we’re beginning to rethink, and to adjust the


way we live to make for greater connectivity, with more consideration for what wildlife needs to survive. You might think that, at least in rural stretches of


river, water voles would have it their own way. But that’s not the case. Riverside meadow is traditionally good for cows, and as they crowd onto the bank to drink or to graze the riverside vegetation, they munch away on water vole food. Worse, they trample the banks and make it impossible for the voles to make the tunnels they live in. Wherever we look, even in the heart of the British countryside, it seems that we’re losing our connection


36 Cumbrian Wildlife | September 2019


with wildlife and making it harder for wild animals to make a living. An idyllic bucolic scene – cows with sweetly vacant expressions staring at a dreamy riverside landscape while chewing the cud – actually represents a life of hell for poor Raty.


Protecting natural river banks Sometimes the solution is as simple as the toad bucket, requiring litle more than common sense and goodwill. I spoke to Darren Tansley of Essex Wildlife Trust. “In several places we’ve erected fences to protect stretches of river bank from cows and create the perfect habitat for water voles.” When a local landowner introduced a regimen of


light grazing at Lodge Farm, the water voles living on the river there disappeared within a year. Darren advised the owner to fence off a section of river and the voles returned, all along the bank. Lock gates on rivers and canals are also problematic


for water voles. But with ‘soſt engineering’ solutions to the problems they create, including coir mating instead of concrete and the planting of willows, they can become water-vole friendly once again – and the connecting nature of the river can be restored. This is not, as you will no doubt have observed,


In just 10 years, 30% of the water vole’s waterside habitat has been lost to agricultural intensification and development.


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