Land Mammals « Assynt Field Club

Water Voles thriving at Quinag

Extract from BBC News Highlands and Islands 22nd October 2010

Numbers of Britain’s fastest-declining mammal are on the rise at Quinag in Assynt. Researchers from Aberdeen University found that water vole numbers are increasing at the site, despite a decline of the mammals across the UK.

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Introduction to Land Mammals of Assynt

Land mammals

1. Introduction. Some 27 species of land mammals (including seals) occur wild in Assynt. Three more, polecat, house mouse and brown long-eared bat appear to have become extinct during the 20th century. Remains from the Bone Caves at Creag nan Uamh and other sources indicate that a number of other species occurred here during historic and prehistoric times, including wolf, lynx, brown bear, polar bear and reindeer. They vary greatly in abundance, with field voles probably numbering 100,000+, and wildcats probably fewer than 100. Some are widespread, such as woodmice and common shrews, others patchy, such as moles, water voles and rabbits.

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The Assynt Bat Cave Project (2009-11)

This project has been designed to ascertain if Assynt Caves are used by roosting bats and to help determine their initial importance for bats. The project proposes to use specialist survey data loggers which can be positioned near a cave entrance where they will detect and store any bat activity without needing human attention.

The project is being run by the North Highland Bat Network with funding by Scottish Natural Heritage.

This is what the project involves.