A CAMPAIGN to raise awareness of the dangers facing one of the region's most reclusive mammals is to be launched next week.

Hunted by mink, exterminated by those who mistake it for the brown rat and with its natural habitat under threat, the water vole has seen a dramatic decline in the North-East over the past 15 years, with a 93 per cent fall in numbers.

Now Durham Wildlife Trust has teamed up with local authorities to install information panels at three key water vole habitats in Sunderland, Easington and South Tyneside to provide details about the species, the habitat it favours and what people can do to prevent its decline.

The trust is working with councils to develop urban habitats for the water vole, which have taken refuge in town streams and ponds where mink fear to go.

The panels, which offer advice such as keeping dogs on leads and how to differentiate between the vole and the rat, are being installed at Wapping Burn, in Shotton Colliery, County Durham, Silksworth Sports Complex, in Sunderland, and the River Don, at West Boldon, South Tyneside.