Water voles are bouncing back at a former fish farm in Yorkshire.

The creatures, made famous by the character of Ratty in Kenneth Graham’s Wind in the Willows, are the country’s fastest declining mammal species because of habitat loss and predation by the non-native mink.

A study by the Wildlife Trusts found that water voles occupied 1,071 10km squares across England, Scotland and Wales in 2016. Just six years later, they were counted in just 652 10km squares, a record low.

However the report identifies 11 new “regional key areas” for water voles – areas greater than 35 sq km where resilient populations are found. These include the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Skerne Wetlands.

Water voles have faced habitat destruction and predation - leading to their vast decline in number.

The former commercial fish farm near Driffield covers over 110 acres, and includes over a mile of the UK’s most northerly chalk stream, and more than 90 former commercial fish farm ponds, now a maze of wetland habitats. It has connected four separate water vole populations around the River Hull.

Water voles act as food for otters, herons and marsh harrier as well as helping “engineer” thriving wetland ecosystems to create flower-rich habitat for insects. Their complex underground structures are used as refuges by a range of other small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects.

Water voles bounce back on Yorkshire's most northerly chalk stream