Photo Credit: Roger W. Barbour
IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS: This semi-aquatic shrew is nearly six inches long, including a 2 ¾-inch tail. It has a dark blackish upper body and tail, and light grayish underparts. The large hind feet are fringed with stiff hairs.
BIOLOGY-NATURAL HISTORY: The West Virginia water shrew is confined to the Appalachian-Allegheny Mountain chain, from the Georgia-Tennessee-North Carolina border north to southwestern Pennsylvania. Little is known about this subspecies. Its diet probably consists of small, aquatic animals including insect larvae and snails. The breeding season of a close cousin – the northern water shrew – lasts from late March to August or September. It produces two or three litters of four to eight young.
PREFERRED HABITAT: Water shrews prefer the margins of remote mountain streams beneath overhanging banks and in rock crevices, usually at higher elevations. Look for them along rocky headwater brook trout streams bordered by hemlock, spruce and rhododendron.
REASONS FOR BEING THREATENED: Survey efforts have failed to produce more than a single specimen at most sites. It is guessed that acidification of many headwater streams in southwestern Pennsylvania, which has caused a loss of brook trout populations, has also seriously eroded the aquatic food base needed to sustain West Virginia water shrews.
MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: Surveys to find remnant populations need to be intensified. Likewise, the shrew’s ecology and local distribution – if any remain – needs to be studied. Only after such research is underway can management recommendations to improve the status of this rare shrew be offered.
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