A native water vole. Photo by: Iain Green. A WILDLIFE charity is calling for volunteers to search for sightings and signs of water voles along river banks. People’s Trust for Endangered Species is asking volunteers across Britain to search for signings and signs of water voles along riverbanks, canals and inland waterways until June 15. This is so that it can complete its survey as part of the National Water Vole Monitoring Programme to help conservationists find where water voles are living, how their populations are changing, and where they are in need of help. The charity hopes that the positive relationship people developed with nature during lockdown will mean the public are keen to get involved and help look for these endearing creatures, or their signs, this spring
An increasing number of hedgehogs are being injured by garden strimmers.
- Credit: Madeline Bennett
A Hatfield hedgehog rescue centre has warned of the dangers garden strimmers can cause to hedgehogs during spring time as gardening season arrives.
Alongside One Voice for Animals UK, Hattie’s Hedgehogs are hoping to raise awareness and protect the animals, with gardening posing a serious threat to their safety.
Set up in memory of Hattie, a pregnant hedgehog who sadly lost her life in June 2019, Hatfield’s hedgehog rescue centre has seen an increased number of the species requiring treatment after being injured or even killed by garden strimmer.
LAND managers have spent the past three years planting, or bringing into ‘appropriate management’, hedgerows and woodlands either side of Freeholders’ Wood at Aysgarth Falls, where dormice were reintroduced in 2008. Farmers have even planted brambles – a plant they might usually regard as a thorny nuisance – in order to provide the mammals with late season fruit. Although now formally completed, the impact of the three-year ‘Wensleydale Dormouse Project’ will be monitored. Simple tubes, containing inked pads, have been hung in hedges to track how far the dormice spread out from their Aysgarth stronghold. “Local people have really taken to hazel dormice,” said project officer Phill Hibbs. “School children at Bainbridge studied them during lockdown, so they’ll know that the dormice are about to wake up from their winter torpor, while local landowners – particularly Stuart Raw at Hollins Farm and Tom Orde-Powlett of the Bolton Estate – have enthusias
Wildlife: Plea for public to survey riverbanks this spring to help save our endangered water voles droitwichstandard.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from droitwichstandard.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
KEIGHLEY people are being asked to do their bit to help protect water voles. Volunteers from the area are sought to take part in a survey, designed to help halt a decline in numbers of the mammal. The initiative, which runs until June 15, is organised by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species. Participants are invited to look out for – and record – signs of water voles along riverbanks, canals and other inland waterways. The data will help the charity build-up a picture of where the creatures are living and how their populations are changing – and where help and support is most needed.