You can help Operation Rescue Ratty save the water vole
photo © Terry Whittaker

"It's my world, and I don't want any other..." said Ratty, describing his river in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. But with Ratty's world changing rapidly, the water voles of Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull are now reduced to just a handful of vulnerable colonies. 
Only with your help can we overcome these major threats to Ratty's future.

Going...	Threat 1 - Habitat Loss
	Active during the day, water voles used to be seen swimming in streams or running around riverbanks busily collecting grasses, sedges and reeds to fill their underground larders.    Water voles also live by ponds, lakes, ditches and even by urban waterways where steep banks can offer perfect sites for their network of burrows.    Today, the water vole’s natural habitat is being lost - eroded by developments, fragmented by intensive recreational use and further destroyed by pollution.    Warwickshire Wildlife Trust’s first priority is to protect and improve the management of the water vole's habitat at key locations throughout the county.

Going...	Threat 2 - People
	Although the water vole is easily recognisable by its chubby face, small ears and glossy round body, unfortunately people sometimes confuse them for the brown rat.    When this tragic mistake occurs, water voles have been destroyed by people - and in Warwickshire we know this has happened. As the number of water vole communities decreases and each colony shrinks, the vole population becomes increasingly fragmented and vulnerable to extinction.    Warwickshire Wildlife Trust will provide new educational materials for landowners and the public so that more people can help protect the water vole.

Gone?	Threat 3 - Mink
	Natural predators of the water vole include stoats, foxes and herons - but the water vole has its burrows to provide safe havens if attacked.    Unfortunately there is now a serious new threat to its survival - the American mink. Introduced first for fur farming then released into the wild, the mink swims faster than the vole, and females are small enough to fit in vole burrows. In other words, the mink is able to wipe out entire colonies of water vole.    We must take immediate action to counter the threats from mink to prevent the water vole becoming extinct in Warwickshire by 2008. With your help we can succeed in saving Ratty!

As you can see, 'Ratty' the water vole is under threat…

• In Coventry, Warwickshire and Solihull we know of less than a handful of isolated populations.

• If we don’t act now, we predict that water voles will have disappeared from Warwickshire forever within 2 years.

• Across the UK, the water vole is facing extinction. A 1998 survey showed the water vole had disappeared from over 89% of the sites it occupied 60 years ago.

• Today, water voles are as rare in Warwickshire as the black rhino is in Africa. 

Click here to read Trust Chief Executive Andy Tasker's letter explaining more about the Appeal

Click here to download our full-colour Operation Rescue Ratty Appeal Leaflet as an Acrobat pdf file (198K)

ALL DONATIONS TO THIS APPEAL WILL BE USED BY WARWICKSHIRE WILDLIFE TRUST TO SAFEGUARD THE WATER VOLE
 through 1. Raising Awareness, 2. Surveying and monitoring, 3. Advising Landowners and 4. Carrying out practical conservation work
More details are here  

Last updated 22 December, 2005