Kingfishers at risk as rivers face drought

KINGFISHERS and water voles are under threat amid warnings that a quarter of English rivers are at risk of drying up.

Water voles are the country’s fastestdisappearing mammal, with numbers falling 90 per cent since the 1970s, while kingfishers are in moderate decline.

Now both are said to be in greater danger as a result of the lack of rainfall over the winter and recent months.

With parts of the UK feared to be facing a drought, the wildlife charity WWF says a quarter of rivers and more than half of chalk streams are in danger of drying out.

The problem is being made worse as a result of water being removed, or ‘abstracted’, from them to supply households and farmers.

RSPB spokesman Jamie Wyver said dried-out rivers reduce kingfishers’ ability to find food and leave their nest burrows more vulnerable to predators.

When river flows are reduced, water voles are also more vulnerable to predators such as the American mink because they are unable to flee to their riverbank burrows via underwater entrances.

The Environment Agency said: ‘We are in a prolonged period of dry weather. Our latest assessment (2016) shows 81 per cent of rivers, lakes and estuaries have water flows that support the ecology well.’