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- - People’s Trust for Endangered Species was set up in 1977 to save our wildlife. We are governed by a board of volunteer trustees and our team of staff are passionate about protecting endangered species and places.
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Wildlife
- Close
- - We protect wildlife in Britain and around the world by bringing our most threatened species back from the brink of extinction. We do this through ground-breaking research, practical conservation and education, all with the help of our supporters.
Wild places
- Close
- - Some habitats contain such a richness of life that we need to protect them at all odds. We are working to preserve ancient woodlands, orchards and wood pastures and parklands, as well as the countless species they support.
What we do
- Close
- - Everything we do is based on scientific evidence. We gather this through surveys, which you can take part in, and by awarding research grants to the most inspiring scientists worldwide. This evidence guides our conservation efforts and is shared through our events and publications.
Who we are
- Close
- - People’s Trust for Endangered Species was set up in 1977 to save our wildlife. We are governed by a board of volunteer trustees and our team of staff are passionate about protecting endangered species and places.
Success stories
- Close
- - We strive to bring our most threatened species in the UK and around the world back from the brink of extinction. Our successes come from ground-breaking research, practical conservation and education, all with the help of our supporters.
Get involved
- Close
- - There are so many ways you can help save endangered species. Fancy taking part in a survey, joining us on a wildlife event or becoming a regular supporter?
Shop
- Close
- - Support our work in our shop with a range of charity gifts, home-ware, cards and more. 100% of the profits go directly to help wildlife both in the UK an overseas.
Donate
- Close
- - There is nothing natural about the alarming rate at which we are losing animals and their homes. It is absolutely avoidable. We can stop the loss of our wildlife – but we need your support. You can act now by choosing to give to our cause. Thank you.

One donation, twice the impact. From the 18th – 25th April your donation to protect ancient woodland will be doubled through the Big Give.

Home // Get involved // Wildlife surveys // In the countryside // Survey water voles // NWVMP training section

NWVMP training section

Welcome to our National Water Vole Monitoring Programme (NWVMP) training pages.

The aim of these training pages is to guide you through how you can take part in the NWVMP. You don’t need to be an expert to monitor water voles but you do need to have some training and experience of accurately identifying their field signs to take part.

For the NWVMP we are asking you to record field signs of three species. These species are:

Water vole (Arvicola amphibius)
Otter (Lutra lutra)
Mink (Neovision vision)

Once you have gone through these training pages you should feel more confident about taking part in the monitoring programme. However, we do still highly recommend that you also gain some practical experience either from attending a training course or by accompanying an experienced monitor.

Experienced volunteers may want to read through to get more of an idea about what the NWVMP aims to do, check-up certain aspects or just refresh their memory and can jump to a certain page using the menu on each page.

Get started

Visit a page in the list below to learn more. You can download a printable version on each page.

• An introduction to the NWVMP
• Planning your survey
• Searching for field signs
• Carrying out your survey
• After your survey
• More training links

Feedback – we would really value your feedback on these training pages and also on the monitoring programme. Please email any comments to watervoles@ptes.org.