It's now strictly against the law to sell or trade or interfere with live or dead
Water Voles, unless you have a special licence from Natural England. I know where you're coming from, mrs fish, though - I'd have a dozen installed in my pond if I could get away with it!
The two things you have to watch with release programmes, though, are:
a) thet your release area is
Mink-free and otherwise suitable, ie it's not going to get flash-flooded or have 40 new houses build on top of it in twenty years' time. Plus you have to
keep it
Mink-free, and maintain the water course with sympathetic clearing every so often.
b) that there are other populations nearby, with 'corridors' to enable the voles to travel between, so as to ensure healthy gene stock. Otherwise an isolated colony will die out eventually.
Just posted some photos of signs in Mark's tracks and signs thread.
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