Friends of the River Crane Environment

Water voles were reintroduced into Crane Park Island in June 2024. ZSL Marine & Freshwater are looking for volunteers prepared to get stuck in and help us with post release monitoring of the water vole population.

Latrine rafts are small floating platforms that water voles use to feed and defecate on. These rafts are used to detect water vole presence within a stretch of river & will be deploying these rafts up and downstream of the water vole release site, to help detect if the water vole are spreading.

Training will be provided on how to identify water vole latrine and field signs, how to survey the latrine rafts and record the data. The training session will include a walkthrough of the survey locations, involving approximately a 4km walk.

The surveys will be conducted in pairs, will involve walking between latrine raft sites (approximately a 3 km round trip) and getting into the river to access the latrine rafts to survey and record the data - all the necessary equipment will be provided. The latrine rafts will be checked twice monthly on every second Thursday, between April - September. Surveys will take a 2-3 hours to complete, and you are asked to commit to at least one survey per month throughout the season.

Dates of latrine rafts surveys (d/m):

03.04 /10.04 /17.04 /24.04 /01.05 /08.05 /15.05 /22.05 /29.05 /05.06 /12.06 /19.06 /26.06 /03.07 /10.07 /17.07 /24.07 /31.07 /07.08 /14.08 /21.08 /28.08 /04.09 /11.09 /18.09 /25.09

Training details:  Book via Eventbrite here 

Location: Crane Park (specific details sent upon singing up)

Please email sam.facey@zsl.org if you have any questions.