The South East Rivers Trust have said that since 101 water voles were released in Surrey four years ago, the animals have settled more widely across the Hogsmill River.
In a partnership with conservation organization Citizen Zoo and with the support of Epsom and Ewell Borough Council and Thames Water, the initial 2022 release was added to with an additional release upstream in 2025.
Immortalized in John Everett Millais’s 1852 painting Ophelia, the river was decimated by urbanization, and with the invasion of the American mink, water voles hadn’t been seen there since the early 1990s.
Laura Nee, Catchment Officer at the South East Rivers Trust, said: “It’s wonderful to see how excited local people are to have water voles living on their doorstep.
“Residents often stop to tell me about hearing the tell-tale ‘plop’ of something entering the water and wondering whether a vole is nearby.”
As the voles are hard to spot, conservationists watch camera traps, bite marks on plants, as well as latrine rafts moored in the river to measure vole activity via the quantity and quality of excrement on them.
“A year after the reintroduction, it’s incredibly exciting to see evidence that the water voles are thriving and making the Hogsmill their home,” Nee said.
Over the next three years, the government has awarded funding for water vole conservation and restoration in the south East, the Midlands, and Yorkshire.
Just as important as reintroduction is addressing the causes of their continuing decline, which is largely attributed by the National Water Vole Database Project to the American mink, which prefers similar habitats and preys on water voles.
Featured image credit: Wildwood Trust
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