Water voles are part of Britain s heritage.
The Wind in the Willows. It comes as some surprise then, to learn that the water vole is now Britain s most rapidly declining mammal. Worst estimates predict the extinction of water voles in the UK by 2003. The reasons are complex. Water vole habitats have been lost to development and hard engineering of riverbanks, whilst the grazing marshes on which water voles thrived in the past are disappearing.