Studies of causes of mortality in rodents, snowshoe hares, and red grouse show that many individuals succumb to predation and few die from starvation or parasite infestation. Predation may be the proximate cause of death and factors like parasite infestation and starvation could facilitate predation. Our aim was to test whether Townsend's voles, Microtus townsendii, experimentally rid of parasites are less likely to be killed by predators than are control voles. During two breeding seasons we treated half of the adults caught at Boundary Bay, British Columbia, Canada, with the anthelmintic Ivomec® and left the other half as controls. Voles were randomly assigned to the treatment and control groups. Predators killed 5 of 23 treated voles and 11 of 26 control voles in 1998. In 1997 predators killed 3 of 17 treated voles and 2 of 18 control voles. Vole density was higher in 1998 than in 1997 and predation was the main cause of mortality in both years. Survival of control voles was lower in 1998 than in 1997, indicating lower predation pressure in 1997 than in 1998. Botfly prevalence and intensity were low and similar in both years. We speculate that the lack of treatment effect in 1997 could have been due to lower overall parasite prevalence in that year than in 1998, resulting in relatively higher susceptibility of voles to predation. Parasite-induced predation reduced monthly survival by 17% in 1998.