Naturally Native

With thanks to players of the National Lottery, Durham, Northumberland and Tees Valley Wildlife Trusts are working together to prevent the loss of one of our fastest declining species.  

Water voles, once common across the UK, have disappeared from over 95% of their former range leaving the species in a critical state and at threat of being lost completely from the lowlands of the North East.  This drastic decline is the compounding effect of two main causes.  Habitat loss and fragmentation has resulted in contracted, small and isolated populations of water voles which are incredibly vulnerable to the second major cause of decline: predation from introduced American mink. 

Working at a landscape scale to address both these issues, Naturally Native will prevent the inevitable loss of water voles from the lowlands and provide opportunities for this much loved mammal to re-colonies our river, streams and ponds.

Between Jan 2021 and October 2023, Naturally Native will be working across the Tyne, Wear and Tees River Catchments, creating a richer environment for wildlife and people.

The project will improve over 10km of riparian habitat and remove American mink to allow remaining water vole populations to expand in size and range. In addition to water voles, a wealth of other native wildlife will benefit including wetland bird populations, invertebrates and fish.  

Naturally Native is a fantastic opportunity for the North East to come together and make a stand against biodiversity loss.  We are grateful to all our volunteers who help undertake water vole surveys; monitor American mink recording equipment and undertake practical habitat restoration to create bigger, better and more joined up habitat for water voles. If you would like to get involved and support this project please visit Volunteer | Durham (durhamwt.com) to register your interest.

The Wildlife Trusts are dedicated to engaging the future custodians of our planet in our work and Naturally Native provides a fantastic opportunity for young people to get involved in preventing biodiversity loss in the North east, whilst learning more about current conservation issues and our natural environment.

Education packs were developed as part of this project and can be found here.