Water voles, once common across the UK, have disappeared from over 95% of their former range and at risk of being lost completely from the lowlands of the North East. The only remaining viable populations in Northumberland are in the North Pennines and a recently reintroduced population in Kielder. This drastic decline is the compounding effect of habitat loss and predation from introduced American mink.

Northumberland Wildlife Trust are writing a new water vole recovery strategy for the North East. Additional funding will allow us to delve deeper to allow us to deliver the strategy in Northumberland by creating reintroduction plans in suitable locations, bringing together groups and funding to remove the threats to water voles from American mink, and work on sourcing and breeding water voles. This work is vital to taking a major step to allow recovery of water voles in Northumberland.