Water Voles

It seems to be easy enough to wipe out a creature or plant, from a place, by a wide variety of methods, but very much harder to re-establish the loss.
This week I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the first release of Water-voles into the Ennerdale valley through the expertise and hard work of Hayley, our Conservation Officer, and the band of dedicated Valley Volunteers.
75 of these amazing creatures (Voles, not Vols) were brought into the valley travelling in small family groups last week. The picture shows a camouflaged/shaded release pen where they have been fed (apple and carrot) whilst becoming familiar with the scents and sounds of their new home. Each pen was placed next to a small beck or ditch.  The job for the day was to replace the wire fronts of the pens with a perforated board so that they could start to move out freely.
As they were bedded in deep straw I hadn’t thought I would get much sight of them but as we had to gently upend the pens to fit the boards we could see through the base wire that they had already made tunnels through the straw and there were lots of glimpses of them scrabbling back into cover. A lot of bottoms and hairy tails!
They are also very clean animals and had established a communal latrine in a corner of each pen.

When the board was fitted, we laid the box carefully back, covered it again and went on quietly to the next one. For the majority there was no sign of them daring to come out whilst we were around.
 However, there was an exception on a rather steep wooded bit of bank where, as we lowered the pen, there was an explosion of furriness out of one of the holes, a resounding ‘Plop’ into the stream  and a Tom and Jerry moment of frantic four-limbed paddling straight across the surface of the water and up the other bank. There the escapee ran out of steam and full-stopped in obvious bewilderment. We spent some happy breathless minutes watching it chunter around between tree trunks trying to get a grip on Freedom, possibly a bit more than it had bargained for.

Of course, as with all other small furry creatures water-voles are designed as food for every meat eater in the valley. 80% fall prey to this fate and as one of the Volunteers commented, with only 75 released this year things were not as bright and cute as one might imagine. The hope is that some of the females will last long enough to produce a last litter of babies before the end of Autumn and thus increase the odds!
Nevertheless, to see a creature that has been missing from an area for years arriving back to take its proper place in the landscape is I think, one of the most positive and uplifting events on the planet. 

Huge admiration for the individuals in the Partnership (Forestry England, National Trust, United Utilities) for their vision and implementation of the Ennerdale Rewilding program.