Glasgow's Fossorial Water Voles

One of the survey sites in a urban park in Glasgow's East End, surprisingly stuffed with water voles!

Water voles. It's in the name right? They typically live near streams and rivers, burrowing into the bank, eating vegetation and having a bit of a swim. Well, not so for Glasgow's East End populations of fossorial water voles! Fossorial animals such as badgers and moles, are adapted to digging underground, but more recently Scottish water voles have been taking to this lifestyle.

Water voles are the largest of the British voles (between 200 - 350g) and usually dark brown in colour, although the Scottish ones are mostly all black. Despite their name they are not that well adapted to swimming as they do not have webbed feet or use their tail to steer themselves. They seem to get by with a doggy paddle well enough, especially when escaping from predators!

They are herbivorous animals, eating grasses and waterside plants, and during the winter; bulbs, roots and rhizomes are nibbled. They live in colonies and breeding females are very territorial, marking out their areas with latrine sites (toilets) where they leave piles of poop, rubbing their hind feet on their scent glands and stamping down the droppings and then leaving some more on top to advertise their presence. Obvious field signs include burrows in the ground, tube-like runs through long grass, feeding stations with little piles of cut vegetation, and of course the latrines.

Fossorial water voles are also known on islands in the Sound of Jura. Interestingly the Scottish and English populations of water voles are genetically different from each other, having resulted from two separate colonization events during the last period of glaciation.

Prototype watervole tube trap concealed along a vole run with some tempting apple.

Sherman trap

I am lucky enough to be helping out Robyn Stewart from Glasgow uni in collecting more information about Glasgow's fossorial water vole populations. She is hoping to get an idea of population numbers in different areas by using the mark and recapture method. The animals are trapped humanely with Sherman traps and plastic tube traps baited with yummy carrot and apple, and some snuggly hay to keep the animals warm. The traps are checked 3 times a day and any caught animals are measured, weighed, microchipped and sent on their way unharmed.

We caught a wee girl who was remarkably co-operative.

Yesterday we baited the traps but left them unset so that the voles could check them out and not feel threatened by them. When we checked them today about 92% of the traps had signs of vole activity inside them which bodes well for trapping success the rest of this week!

In a Pringles tube :)

Measured, micro-chipped and set back on her way

Water voles are protected in Scotland by law and deliberately or recklessly damaging or destroying water vole burrows and access or disturbing the animals while they are using them is an offence. If you observe anyone doing such a thing please contact the police or SNH