Voles are small rodents that support entire food webs through their abundance. Their welfare and population health affect countless predator species that depend on them as prey.
Vole welfare is ecologically entangled — their population health directly determines the welfare prospects of their predators. A barn owl pair needs 2,000-3,000 voles per year to raise a brood. Predator welfare at this scale depends on vole welfare. The threats to voles — rodenticide secondary poisoning, habitat loss from intensive farming, predation by invasive mink on water voles — therefore have cascading welfare implications across food webs. Vole-positive land management is predator-positive land management.