Habitat management
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Click here if you have seen a water vole!
Concentrate your efforts along slower-flowing sections of streams and rivers or on static water bodies such as ponds or lakes, in areas where there are banks that are steep enough to support burrow systems.
Protect banks from over-grazing by sheep, cattle and horses. Over-grazing reduces food and cover, compacts soil, erodes banks and damages burrow systems. Temporary or permanent fencing provides a quick solution in problem area.
Along ditches that may be prone to drying out, consider erecting sluices to retain permanent water.
If banks are densely shaded, consider removing some young trees or shrubs to create more of a balance between open and shaded areas. Work should be carried out between October and March to avoid the bird nesting season. Young seedlings and saplings can be removed by hand, or scrub and small trees can be cut and treated with herbicide. Selectively coppicing shrubs (ie cutting and leaving to regrow) is another option, but this will need to be undertaken regularly, otherwise shade levels may be increased by the more bushy growth which coppicing stimulates. Select trees and shrubs for cutting or coppicing carefully: non-native trees should be removed first, while mature or decaying trees should be left untouched.
Leave a buffer strip of at least two metres of tall grasses, rushes and sedges along the margins and banks of watercourses to provide food and cover. The wider the buffer strip, the better. These areas of tall vegetation may provide temporary nesting sites for water voles in flooding events and will also provide valuable habitat for field voles and other animals as well. Occasional mowing or grazing of these areas in late autumn (at least once every 3 years) will limit scrub colonisation. Section of vegetation can be cut in rotation so that some cover always remains. Always leave an uncut fringe of marginal plants at the foot of the bank and avoid cutting close to water vole burrow holes that may be located on the bankside.
More information and advice is available to download from the resources page.
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