NE Publish Reptile Mitigation Guidelines

I think personally this forum is the ideal format for feedback.

Edited by GemmaJF - 11 Oct 2011 at 1:07pm

Matt Smith wrote: MancD wrote: GemmaJF wrote: there doesn't seem to have been any moves from NE such as putting DRAFT on the current document. I'm sure this thread is being read, I won't hold my breath for an official response though.   I'm not sure what sort of "response" you are expecting Gemma, you can't expect Natural England to be trawling internet forums for reaction to its publications especially given the current climate of resource pressures. I only visit here through my interest in herps rather than in any official capacity for my employer. As I mentioned earlier, if you provide feedback to NE, we are obliged to respond so if you have any comments you should send them direct to NE rather than waiting for them to be found.   NE will have a new Amphibian and Reptile Species Specialist shortly and I expect part of that role will be dealing with any feedback on the guidelines. It does seem to me that there is quite a bit of feedback regarding the guidelines happening on this forum. If and when NE does have a new Reptile and Amphibian Specialist, I would certainly expect them to be looking at these forums from time to time. Even if the feedback here is "unofficial", at the very least I would expect a post along the lines of "Hi - I'm the new NE Herp specialist - this discussion is interesting and I have taken note of the points raised. Please copy me in to any further discussion via an E-mail". I don't expect NE to conduct a "defense" of the new guidelines in an open forum like this, but it is an excellent place to reach alot of people easily, and the discussion among ourselves here is pulling up new points and considerations as it develops. Sometimes, it is easier and quicker to discuss things here rather than having to sit and generate a more "formal" e-mail to NE along the lines of "Point 1 - No. of mats. Point 2 - Capture Effort tables". However, if NE only consider feedback to be that which is sent directly into the person concerned, then they need to say so, and also to come back to us. Feedback should not ne a one way thing, there are quite a few questions that have been raised here that we would like answers to. Even if it means someone reposts a copy of an "official NE E-mail" here then that is something.

Yes i would agree that this forum thread has been very interesting, and clarified some points eg capture effort. I would hope that Natural England are reading this thread so that our points raised can be altered and that the document will be made a draft.




Edited by sussexecology - 06 Apr 2012 at 10:10pm

A few more things caught my attention whilest looking through the guidelines again:

1 - Presence / Absence surveys: I think I understand what NE are trying to say here when the document says "For each species possibly present, the survey may cease once the species has been detected". I am assuming these comments are aimed at instances where there is "negligeable" or "low" impact predicted, ie when we just need to know if a species is present. The problem here is twofold - No 1 is that the design of the survey relies on the surveyor deciding which species "may possibly be present", which risks "missing" other species (if we find slow-worms on Day 1 and stop, we risk missing the lizards or grass snakes that may be there). This also opens up the prospect of survey design "ignoring" some species deliberately. Secondly, with this way of doing things it is going to be very difficult to compare surveys if the design and implementation vary each time. Working this way may also not tell us that we indeed have an exceptional slow-worm population on site if we stop on Day 1 after we find 1 animal. I think it would be much better just to remove the whole "presence / absence survey" section and treat everything the same in terms of survey design and timings. If we are going to do a survey, lets set a minimum level of visits etc for a site to ensure we havea good idea of what is really there.

2 - Optimal and sub-optimal survey times.    Hidden away in the "worked example" text on Page 29 is the following sentence "Because the August-September surveys would happen during a month where the weighting is sub-optimal(less than 4), the survey should be spread across a period of around 60 days. If I understand this correctly, this means any for any survey where any of the the months score less than 4, then the minimum survey period = 60 days, not 30. If this is so, this needs to be stated up front in large letters, otherwise a lot of surveys could find themsleves not complying with the guidelines. I don't have a problem with the idea, but it needs to be made more obvious, I didn't pick up on this point until today.

3 - Survey effort. On Page 35 is the following :"In this case, as the capture programme cannot start until late June, which is in a suboptimal capture period for adders, the consultant adds an extra 10 days." Sorry - where did these "extra 10 days" come from. They are not mentioned anywhere else and certainly not in the calculations for capture effort. Having seen too many times with the GCN Guidelines where throwaway comments like this have become fixed NE policy, I am concerened that the same thing will happen here. If capture at sub-optimal times of the year requires more effort then say so up front or build it into the tables, don't hide it away in a bit of text.

Hi badgerboy

badgerboy wrote: It seems to me that people are being rather hard on poor Duncan. As he says, if people have ANY comments about content or consulting wider before publication then why not do as the document says and feedback via the e-mail address given? Why can't the people that run this site do it on behalf of all the contributors rather than just have a moan. I have worked in government and we were officially banned from posting on such forums so that may well be the reason there is no official comment from NE. Another reason as Duncan correctly points out is they don't have many staff these days so I guess they are all too busy doing what they have to do to have the time to search out and read forums such as this.

Edited by GemmaJF - 22 Oct 2011 at 8:53pm