The Water Vole

[Paigntonian]

Never fail to be amazed by so-called stats. BBC news item saying water vole population has 'declined by 90 percent in the last 100 years'. Quite sure there were few records a hundred years ago and how on earth can anyone possibly know?

[Buenchico]

Most of that decline occurred during the last two decades of the twentieth century, when many conservationists were mapping their populations, due to the introduction and rapid spread of American mink into the UK.

[bednobs]

i never fail to be amazed by people who want to discuss news stories, but fail to provide a link

[ichkeria]

Are you suggesting this is fake news?

I find that idea odder than the thought that 100 years ago people might have been counting water voles :-)

[Ellipsis]

> Quite sure there were few records a hundred years ago

What makes you quite sure about that?

The Domesday Book was completed almost 1000 years ago, let alone 100 years. The Romans and Egyptians a long time before that. It's human nature to record stuff.

[Buenchico]

The BBC News item was almost certainly based upon this press release from PTES:
https://ptes.org/survey-local-riverbanks-this-spring-to-help-save-endangered-water-voles/

[bednobs]

perhaps paign mis-read it then

[THECORBYLOON]

I seen a few sites quoting a 90% reduction over various periods including this one from 2012 mentioning a figure of eight million at the turn of the previous century.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19568347

"A recent report by the Environment Agency said the UK's water vole population has dropped 90% since the late 1980s, making it the UK's fastest declining mammal.

Numbers fell from 1.2m to just 400,000 in 10 years - while 8 million are estimated to have lived in Britain's waterways at the beginning of the 20th Century."

[youngmafbog]

This is the problem when you introduce a non indigenous species.

I too doubt 100 years ago they were counting water vole.

[bednobs]

which all sounds reasonable. If only we had the news report that paign refers to!

[jno]

you misheard: this has nothing to do with 100 years ago. What they said was "a staggering 90 per cent of the population was lost between the 1980s and 1990s alone" - so that covers something between one and 20 years, depending on how you interpret "between the 1980s and 1990s". At any rate, recent years, in which they were counting.

That's from the link Buenchico provided. I can't find it on the BBC website: their search function is dreadful, so I can't blame Paigntonian for not being able to locate it.

[tomus42]

There must have been a water vole census 100 years ago. We wouldn't know the rate of decline since then otherwise. It's good that people had the foresight to count stuff back then so we can work out how fast it's dying out nowadays.

[gness]

Spot on, Tomus. If you look into it folk were recording so much far longer than 100 years ago and as you say...great that they were. Tells us so much.

[tomus42]

Now they know how many voles it takes to fill the Albert Hall.