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Overwinter survival and post-release movements of translocated water voles: implications for current mitigation guidance

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Abstract

Translocation is currently used as a last resort mitigation strategy for water voles (Arvicola amphibius) in the UK (Dean et al. 2016), where populations have undergone widespread declines during the past century. To increase the chances of success, current guidance suggests translocation of voles during autumn should not be carried out as individuals may be at higher risk of overwinter mortality, and instead should be overwintered in captivity for release the following spring. To verify this guidance, we carried out a mark recapture and radiotracking study of an autumn translocated and resident population in lowland England. Whilst we found translocated voles undertook longer exploratory movements than residents and those previously recorded in spring, there was no evidence from our study that translocated voles suffered higher mortality rates compared to the resident individuals. The turnover in both populations was high with 25% and 8% of the translocated and resident individuals being recaptured in spring. Younger voles that were not collared had a significantly higher chance of being recaptured in spring and their survival and settlement on the receptor channel is considered important as this is the age class that will produce most of the following years’ young. Mean weekly distances moved by collared voles showed no pattern of stabilisation, in either sex, over the 10-week monitoring period and combined dispersal from both study populations accounted for 26% of those that were not recaptured in spring. However, due to low sample size, we were unable to distinguish between the effects of dispersal and mortality. We conclude that where individuals or populations will be negatively impacted by planned development, autumn translocations in lowland England may offer a feasible alternative to housing animals in captivity, given the high financial cost and additional health and welfare risks associated with a captive environment. The receptor site and adjacent habitat (> 1 km) would need to support a seasonal abundance of food and cover, be connected to existing populations and be part of a wider landscape that is mink free and under an effective mink control programme to help secure long-term population viability. We advise, however, that due to our small sample size, further studies are undertaken to confirm our findings.

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Acknowledgments

We thank DP World, London for permitting this research and providing financial and logistical support. We are grateful to The Ecology Consultancy for providing equipment and the help of fieldwork assistants. We would also like to thank the Natural England licencing team, in particular, Hazel Carter, for supporting this research and Dr. Andrew Overall and Dr. Bryony Tolhurst for helpful guidance on data analysis in “R”.

Funding

DP World, London provided financial support for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecology, Conservation and Zoonosis Research Group, The University of Brighton, Huxley Building, Lewes Road, Moulsecomb, Brighton, BN2 4GJ, UK

    R. Baker & D. M. Scott

  2. Natural England, Cambridge, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Essex and Hertfordshire Area Team, Essex Local Delivery Team, Eastbrook, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge, CB2 8DR, UK

    C. Keeling

  3. The Ecology Consultancy, The Old Dairy, Barcombe Mills Road, Lewes, BN8 5FF, UK

    C. Dwight

Authors
  1. R. Baker
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  2. D. M. Scott
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  3. C. Keeling
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  4. C. Dwight
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Correspondence to D. M. Scott.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The project was undertaken under Natural England Licence 2016-22064-SCI-SCI, where consideration is given to ethics and animal welfare prior to project approval. Live capture and translocation followed best practice guidelines as stated in Strachan et al. 2011 and Dean et al. 2016.

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Baker, R., Scott, D.M., Keeling, C. et al. Overwinter survival and post-release movements of translocated water voles: implications for current mitigation guidance. Eur J Wildl Res 64, 56 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-018-1216-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-018-1216-8

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