Earlier this spring we had two very exciting captures in mink traps in the Ugie and Spey catchments - water voles!

The first was captured on the 28th of April in the Ugie catchment. A remoti devices alerted our local project officers that a mink trap had been triggered and they turned up to find not a mink - but a water vole. The first water vole captured in a Scottish Invasive Species Initiative mink trap! The vole was promptly released and ran off unharmed. This particular trap is located on a burn which has been a hotspot for mink in recent years, with a female mink captured only the week before.

The second capture was in the Spey catchment on the 8th June in a new area where we haven't recently had coverage. Our fantastic volunteers who monitor the trap - Julie and Nicky - released the vole straight away and will continue monitoring and trapping mink in the area.

Both water voles had black fur, which is not unusual in Scotland where water voles are genetically distinct from most of those in England and Wales and are believed to be descended from migrants from northern Iberia rather than from South East Europe migrants.

We have had various other unexpected guests in our mink traps (pine martens and otters to say the least) but these captures are notable because invasive American mink are a key cause of water vole decline in the UK. The water vole is the UK’s most rapidly declining mammal - populations have declined by 90-97% (estimates vary) and they have been lost from 94% of places where they were once prevalent. Habitat loss and fragmentation are partly responsible for this but mink predation is a major factor - the most rapid water vole declines in the 1980s and 1990s were due to the spread of American mink across the country.

These captures are hopefully a sign that our project is helping local water vole populations by keeping American mink at bay. We will continue trapping in these areas and hopefully protecting the water voles as we do so!

For more information on Water voles in Scotland: https://www.nature.scot/plants-animals-and-fungi/mammals/land-mammals/w…