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The rough guide to reptile mitigation.... |
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herpetologic2
Forum Coordinator Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1511 |
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Posted: 12 Jan 2009 at 5:09pm |
Or would be be named the unofficial reptile mitigation guidelines.... Anyway carrying on from the reptile survey best practice/guidance we are now going to look at reptile mitigation. This guidance is aimed at development related projects which affect the conservation status of reptiles. The guidance also relates to the widespread reptile species and not the rare species - sand lizard & smooth snake 1. Survey effort - A minimum of 10 survey visits should be made to a study site. Non consecutive survey visits need to be made following the guidance on reptile survey. Trapping out reptiles based on peak counts or density figures. Capture effort should be plotted on graphs to determine the decline in numbers. Only after 5 clear days of suitable weather habitat manipulation can commence. Once a significant number of animals have been rescued then the last phase of the trapping follows a 'destructive' search 2. Habitat assessment & current impacts identified on the site - the assessment should be aimed at conserving the reptile interests of the local area with two main aims as identified by Natural England 2(i) To avoid harm to any resident reptiles 2(ii) To prevent any net loss of local conservation status of any reptiles found within a site 3. Species specific mitigation - lizards should be treated differently to the snakes. The general requirements of the different species are similar but it needs to be recognised that snakes operate within a wider range of habitat than the lizards. Slow-worms and lizards would exist in small habitat ranges than the snakes. Effectively the scale of habitat use is larger in snakes. 4. Look for alternative sites to develop, then accommodate the reptile interest within a development by a redesign of development scheme, then a relocation to an in situ receptor site and an absolute last resort translocation to external sites. 5. Ideally all the required survey work should be completed over at least a full reptile season. The reptile survey should follow the guidance on reptile survey and it should also look beyond the study site and into the wider countryside to look for suitable receptor sites and sites which can be improved for reptiles as compensation for development. Putting the study site in context with adjoining habitat and reptile populations is important to assess the likely impacts towards conservation of reptiles. 6. Habitat features should be mapped on site using survey information - for e.g. adders found within the early spring would be pretty close to their hibernation area - this should be incorporated withina development design. If the hibernacula will be lost then a replacement should be provided. Ideally more habitat should be created which is lost. 7. Trapping effort - if reptiles need to be moved away from any harmful activities then the closer to the original capture site the better. Reptiles should not be translocated any great distance unless it is absolutely necessary. Large distance translocations over 35km should be avoided. 8. Receptor sites - receptor sites should ideally be larger than the habitat being lost to development. Ideally an existing reptile population should be absent but it has connectivity to other adjoinign reptile populations. Habitat enhancements should be made to a receptor site in advance of moving animals. Using receptor sites year after year should be discouraged. Farmland reverted to rough grassland habitats would be the best option. Habitat management on neglected habitats or unsuitable reptile habitat (such as planted pine forests) can provide suitable areas to move reptiles to. (i) Receptor site should be larger in area than the habitat being lost (no net conservation loss) (ii) Receptor sites should be a similar habitat to the donor site (iii) Secure for the long term through a management agreement planning conditions or section 106 (iv) Within 10km of the donor site and ideally within 2km - only when absolutely necessary further distances can be considered. Distances over 30km should not be considered. (v) connected to further habitat and near other reptile colonies (vi) Enhancements should be prepared in advance of the movement of animals 9. Monitoring - provision of monitoring reptiles should be aimed towards the long term - beyond 10 to 25 years - depending on the size of the project. Funds should made available to an organisation to help fund surveys at least every other year to inform management activities over the winter. Short term monitoring cannot provide the information whether a population is self sustaining and it is suggested that more long term monitoring programmes are required. 10. Follow up management works - it is important to provide money for follow up management guided by monitoring surveys. Funds should be paid to managing organisation - volunteer effort or paid contractors for a set period of 20 to 25 years - dependent on size of project. Any other comments and suggestions
Jon Edited by herpetologic2 |
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Vicar
Senior Member Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1184 |
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Hi Jon,
This is really useful, as I have to write something similar for LPA guidelines in Surrey. Clearly the better aligned they are to national guidelines the better! One immediate thought - the term 'Ideally' could be subjectively interpreted. I'm hoping to generate levels of evidence required by the developed to demonstrate that on-site mitigation is not practicable. putting the onus on the developer to prove to a defined standard that first steps are not available - rather than 'we couldn't find a local site, but we did find a site 200 miles away' :P There may also be a trade-off between locality and quality of reptile habitat (within reasonable ranges) - again would need definition. Will get back to you when I've developed thoughts more. |
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herpetologic2
Forum Coordinator Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1511 |
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Hi Steve It would be good to develop the LPA guidelines into an advice sheet from ARG UK. There is a planning advice sheet for ARG groups perhaps a similar advice sheet can be developed for LPA's? At the South East Meeting last year we discussed the need for new guidance on best practice and we need to think about what is acceptable practice (suggested by Lee Brady) rather than determine what consultants should do in projects - we should expect things like no net loss of status, increases in reptile habitat, monitoring of projects and reporting survey results. Regards
Jon |
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sussexecology
Senior Member Joined: 30 Sep 2010 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 411 |
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Hi Steve and Jon Do you know, or anyone else know, if the updated reptile mitigation guidelines from Natural England, have been produced yet? I believe that Natural England were hoping to get these published in the spring 2010. I'm an ecological consultant but find it frustrating there is no formal reptile mitigation advice (which is up to date). I was interested to read your comments though Jon. Certainly regarding reptile surveys, the minimum seems to be 7 although I have often found silow worms on the 3rd visit. Some informaiton on assessing the impacts of develpoment would be helpful and what the minimum required for mitigation is. Particularly interested in slow worm mitigation advice that this up to date in relation to receptor sites and habitat enhancement. i believe that it is bad practice to move reptiles from a development site without planning permission. However, in some cases, I have been forced to begin mitigation because planning authorities are somewhat laid back and often cause delays. Any comments would be welcome. |
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Vicar
Senior Member Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1184 |
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I have seen the draft. NE are currently wrapping up the consultation process. Shouldn't be much longer. There were still some ambiguities in the draft I saw, such as the failure to define 'suitable conditions'.
7 visits is probably inadequate, or to put it another way, provides only a low confidence of probable absence. It depends on the species and to some degree the refugia density, but 7 visits would give a confidence of probable absence of roughly 40%. That's not opinion, its statistics. DICE should be publishing a paper on detectability soon. For low tin density sites, for snake species, you would need about 40 visits 'in suitable conditions' for 95% confidence of probable absence, which is the confidence we use for conservation translocations (re-introductions). This uses a 'worst case' detectability of 6-8%. 40 visits is probably excessive, but 7 is probably too few. Edited by Vicar |
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herpetologic2
Forum Coordinator Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1511 |
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Hi there.
There has been two years of testing the NARRS survey protocols for reptile survey. This will give an idea of what the minimum requirement for volunteers to detect the presence of each UK reptile species. From the initial results the slowworm was the most frequently detected species in the study. To me surveys should aim for as many visits as possible. Natural England have two main aims for reptile mitigation in their guidance for developers or any organisation whose activities will impact on the welfare (aim one) and the local conservation status of each species (aim two). We have limited evidence on how effective mitigation strategies are for reptiles. Slowworms and lizards have anecdotally beenshown to have benefited by mitigation while the standard reptile mitigation that we all know and see has no evidence whether it benefits the snake species. The obsession with reptile fencing and translocation is probably more to do with money and profit rather then whether it actually works or effective. I have translocated several populations of lizards and slowworms with some success but we have not got to the required time needed to determine this success (who will pay for it?) If you are getting presence from three visits that is great you have more time to work out the relative population size in the next seven visits. Survey results vary over the season in population density, sex ratios, concentration of animals around foci (hibernation features and foraging sites etc). Surveys for snakes are best carried out in the spring. There is no way the population status can be determined during surveys during the summer as snakes are in very low density during this time. Hibernation sites need to be identified in surveys so that they can be protected or recreated during mitigation work To me habitat is much more important than miles of fencing external translocation and the other revenue generating habits we find hard to break Jon |
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Vicar
Senior Member Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1184 |
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What Jon says is completely in line with received knowledge. In my opinion, We need to move more toward evidenced-based deductions. The controlled survey data doesn't support the Spring hypothesis...but early days yet. As the years go, the data gets better. I agree with all the other points! You can see the stats for other species here. Edited by Vicar |
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herpetologic2
Forum Coordinator Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1511 |
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Hi Steve
Thats a great tool. maybe I should clarify a few things on what I am looking for to assess an adder population. I tend to use the 'adult counts' to determine a rough idea of the relative population size of a population of adders. These counts normally only consist of male adders - you could argue that the sex ratio should be nearer to 1:1 so you could double the population estimate based on adult male adder counts. Often it is a sub population within a larger metapopulation that we find when surveying sites. If you use the surrey tool and put in Adult, male and all sightings you will see that it is more efficient to survey in the spring (one of the most optimal times of year according to NE). I tend to use visual surveys to detect the adult animals coming out of hibernation - thus finding an important habitat feature and where part of the population is centred during the winter and spring. I have several sites which I have surveyed using visual and refugia and it would be good to number crunch these sites as well. Jon |
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sussexecology
Senior Member Joined: 30 Sep 2010 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 411 |
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Thanks for your comments. I agree that more than 7 visits are required as well as the density of refugia. In fact I feel that the more visits you can do, the better - providing the weather conditions are suitable. Regarding the number of refugia - Froglife recommend using 5-6 per ha but I have found that using a density of 50+ is far better. It depends on the site conditions and available habitats as well as the materials that you have available. I have found that roofing felt and corrugated iron works well for slow worms. I think more research is required to determine if translocation programmes are successful for reptiles - esp slow worms. I would normally recommend that surveys are undertaken for at least 5 years following the translocation, although obviously this depends on time constraints, weather conditions and funding. Re the mitigation for slow worms - i have found that strimming areas of grass where slow worms are known to be present and leaving patches of grass uncut makes it easier to catch them. Obviiously this needs to be controlled and done gradually but it works! Thanks again.
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herpetologic2
Forum Coordinator Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1511 |
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The froglife guidance is not intended or wasn't intended
to be used for consultancy work - it is a problem as consultancy work often far exceeds the required effort as indicated in the froglife advice sheet - 5 to 10 aco's per hectare - the key reptile site criteria cannot be used to assess reptile populations using consultancy data as it is based on much more detailed surveys. An example My local churchyard has 30 Aco's laid out in approx 0.07Ha - the level of survey effort is therefore 428 Acos pre hectare! The peak counts for the site have been 109 last year and 151 this year - an exceptional population based on the criteria in the froglife advice sheet - If I wanted to put the density of 10 Aco's per hectare, as indicated by Froglife, I would have to have put 0.7 Aco's out on the site! clearly the froglife advice is out of date and needs to be updated even for volunteer surveys. The NARRS survey protocols is using just 30 ACO's at a standard size of 0.5m2 - At the churchyard I used 0.25m2 ACO's starting with 30 but recording how many were checked on each survey - as this is a variable which is being tested along with weather, site conditions, location, site size, numbers of surveyors and their experience etc. Hopefully the survey standards will be adopted as part of standard reptile survey protocols - DICE have just got funding for workshops on this matter over 2011 and 2012 - so I think we will have more robust guidance to which survey effort can be assessed Jon |
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