Northants water vole comeback starts with release at Nene Wetlands - The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire

More than 100 water voles have been released at the Nene Wetlands Nature Reserve as part of ambitious plans to restore the species to Northamptonshire.

Last week 116 water voles bred in captivity were released to the nature reserve and more will follow next year. The release was funded and licensed by Natural England as part of its Species Recovery Programme. Find out more about the funding in this blog Species Recovery Programme Capital Grant Scheme awards – Natural England (blog.gov.uk).

Water voles in Northamptonshire are now restricted to a few isolated colonies. The last records for the area around Nene Wetlands Nature Reserve are from around the year 2000. The Wildlife Trust has been working with partners in the county including Stanwick Lakes country park and Water Resources East to create the right conditions for water voles return. It is hoped that this project will be the start of a meta population of water voles which can then expand across Northamptonshire.

The voles arrived on the site in cages and were released into pens which were placed alongside water courses on the reserve several metres apart. As well as the specialist conservation equipment used to ensure their safe transport and release, the team also used recycled Pringles tubes which are the perfect size and shape to move the animals.

They stayed in the pens being fed every day for a week so they could acclimatise themselves to the habitat before the pens were opened and they were allowed to leave and make their home in the wild.