Tracking ratty: Week 10 of the Water Vole Displacement Project

Now that radiotracking has come to an end, this week we have been trapping at three of our experimental sites to remove the collars from our voles. We will also use the data that we collect to estimate the vole population size at each of our sites using the capture-mark-recapture method.

It has been great to be trapping again and getting hands on with the voles that we have been tracking for the last couple of months, it feels like seeing old friends! We have also caught some new individuals, including a tiny 54g baby who is evidence that in this mild weather the voles are still breeding late into the season.

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On Thursday and Friday we also had groups of ecological consultants out with us in the field on a water vole course run by Merryl. It was lovely to be able to show people what we have been doing during the study and see how they think our results may influence their work.

Sadly for us this is our last week on the project. The time seems to have flown by and we have had so much fun that we don’t want to go! It has been fantastic to work with Merryl and Harry and we have been made incredibly welcome by everyone at WildCRU.  Harry will finish trapping and removing collars at our last sites over the next two weeks and after that all of the data will go for analysis.

Look out for the results in the near future.

Charlotte and Emily

For more information on this project or to donate to this work, visit our Appeal page or the WildCRU website. You can also keep up to date with this project on Facebook and Twitter. And for more cute pictures of water voles, visit Andrew Harrington’s website http://u0000vs933onpn8m.photoshelter.com/gallery/The-dark-water/G0000KcrP4sU1uGs/