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NE Publish Reptile Mitigation Guidelines |
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GemmaJF 
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Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Location: Essex Status: Offline Points: 4359 |
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 Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 10:52am |
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Yes I absolutely agree Matt regarding making all the widespread species 30. There is a danger here that what could have been simple has become overly complicated.
I think the old system of dealing with a survey request for October of stating, "Well yes we can survey in October but if we don't find anything we'll have to do it again in April/May the following year" worked well for us in most cases. Some clients still wanted to go for the October survey, and often we actually did record a lot of animals, enough to be confident to produce a mitigation proposal. In other years clients accepted the fact that the weather windows simply did not occur and at an early stage agreed to reschedule the survey for a more suitable time. The flip side is that I'm not sure that we won't see some consultancies going through the motions of doing 13 visits in October because the guidelines say they can, and the client schedule dictates they must, in years when it is simply a waste of time due to the weather. But because they met the guidelines the results will stand. The words 'foot', shoot' and 'oneself' come to mind. I'm also fairly convinced that it will become a 'standard' in many cases to assume that slow-worm are the only target widespread species so reptile survey will be a case of placing the mats in early April and squeezing in five visits by mid May. The detection rates of Grass snake and Adder will be lower than ever. There has been in my experience an attitude that 'Common Lizards' don't count, Grass Snake are always transient and therefore don't really count, 'Adder?' never seen one so they don't count. Ah Slow-worm, yes 5 visits in April/may will be fine then. The widespread species are all hugely under recorded in much of the country so leaving the decision of which species to target to the consultant will I'm afraid in many cases result in them choosing the one with the lowest number of visits required for the given month. I would have much rather have seen a system which took the highest count for the month (8 for April, May and September for the widespread species) and use this as the recommended number of survey visits. Certainly this is the standard M&G will adopt on the grounds that there simply isn't enough existing survey data to rule out both grass snake and adder at any given site in the SE where we operate. I'm not totally against the guidelines and agree on the whole they are positive, there is plenty of good stuff there and with a little fine tuning I think they will be excellent. I do though think there should be some serious consideration given to: a) Simplifying the tables (make slow-worm 30). b) Raising the the number of survey visits recommended to the highest count for the widespread species for that month. C) Making October + Adder N/R one simply can't do 30 visits and meet other recommendations in the guidelines. Not only will it be much simpler, it will also ensure that a reasonable survey effort is put in at sites where we simply do not know if Adder or Grass snake exist.
Edited by GemmaJF - 20 Sep 2011 at 12:09pm |
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GemmaJF
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Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Location: Essex Status: Offline Points: 4359 |
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Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 3:12pm |
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Just had my second full read through the guidelines.
New concerns, mitigation capture effort relies on the consultant making an assessment of the habitat suitability. This is an area where generalist consultants are often very poor at making a judgement and seem to put anything that isn't pristine heath down as 'poor' or 'sub-optimal' habitat. (See my thread on 'Breaking the Grassy Duck' for a local example of this). A classic example of this was a consultant who described the Kent marshes as 'poor reptile habitat', oh really? I would be interested to know also who is going to be keeping tabs that consultants work to the new guidelines? I'm very keen on the bulk of the information provided but the complexity of calculating survey visits, capture effort and even monitoring surveys will surely take some considerable effort to check? I cannot see local planning departments easily digesting this document and making appropriate decisions regarding whether or not survey effort was adequate. It's simple for GCN, anyone in planning can recite the requirement. Not the same case here at all.
Edited by GemmaJF - 20 Sep 2011 at 3:25pm |
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calumma
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Joined: 27 Jun 2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 375 |
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Posted: 21 Sep 2011 at 9:08am |
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Just for the record, I did not contribute to these guidelines.
Whilst I agree with many of the sentiments expressed in the words, I believe the current document is a mess. There are several errors, the effort tables are unwieldy and it appears that significant emphasis has been placed on my habitat assessment workshop at HWM without any meaningful description on how very arbitrary classifications should be derived (this methodology is still very much a work in progress and I'm pretty pissed that NE jumped the gun). My view is that the folks who need to review reptile reports will struggle to understand whether survey work has met minimum standards. A set of tables and check boxes do not replace solid experience. It is easy to confirm the presence of a species, much more difficult to justify absence (commercially, within a report). I can see what the new guidelines attempt to achieve, but I honestly believe that they represent a failure and I am very disappointed that they have been published in their current form. Whilst NE claim that the guidelines will be updated based on user feedback, they said the same about the gcn guidelines and we are still waiting... |
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GemmaJF
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Posted: 21 Sep 2011 at 10:30am |
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Lee I honestly thought you had put in some input, but this was before reading through the entire document a couple of times.
You have very concisely summed up my feelings regarding the document in your post above. I was at first thinking it was just me and didn't want to be over critical, but the description of the current document as a 'mess' really does sum it up.
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sussexecology
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Posted: 21 Sep 2011 at 7:44pm |
And Ditto from me too. The word I was looking for the other day by the way was fieldcraft. Edited by sussexecology - 06 Apr 2012 at 9:50pm |
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GemmaJF
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Posted: 21 Sep 2011 at 8:09pm |
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Fieldcraft is indeed the word. You can't bottle it and you certainly cannot make-up for a lack of it by producing a document full of tables.
I already ran into problems with a client today attempting to explain the new system for survey effort, quite ridiculous in a meeting to have to say 'I'll need to calculate the minimum effort required' where in the past I would have just drawn on my experience to provide guidance.
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GemmaJF
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Posted: 22 Sep 2011 at 11:16pm |
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First version of a spreadsheet to crunch all the numbers.
This is a very simple sheet that calculates the effort and total number of visits that would be required for a survey for all four widespread species. It currently misses out February (According to NE you cannot survey for two of the widespread species in February and count the effort) I hope at least this first version will make it easier to: a) know how many survey visits to make in each month to reach the minimum required b) quickly check if a survey has met the minimum requirement Any feedback welcome. If people want to see a version that can handle each of the four widespread species individually or combinations let me know. Also if they would like me to tackle some of the other dreadful tables in the same fashion, let me know and I'll give it a go. I think at least this first version puts things in the perspective we may look at it, such as OK I can book 5 sessions in March, how many do I need to do in May to reach the required effort? Or, consultant X did a survey with 4 visits in June, 5 in July and 2 in August did they meet the minimum effort required? It's pretty simple at the moment and explained below:  Download the calculator here: Usual stuff applies, if it kills your computer or if I've forgotten how to add up I'm not responsible, i.e. download and use at your own risk. Edited by GemmaJF - 23 Sep 2011 at 12:38am |
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GemmaJF
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Posted: 23 Sep 2011 at 12:21am |
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Just a note about the calculator, if one puts in 13 visits in March the Effort will show as 26. This is actually sufficient effort to cover all four widespread species (It's due to the lower scoring for Slow-worm of 25 and the low monthly rating of 2). Otherwise for all and any other combinations of visits the Effort should show 30 (or more) to be sufficient.
I noticed an anomaly in that if one puts in 12 visits in March one has to make 2 visits not one extra visit in April, which we all know is a more optimal month to meet the criteria for all four widespread species. In other words because of inconsistency in the table, it's better to make 13 visits in a less optimal month than to make one of those visits in a more optimal month  Did anyone actually analyse these numbers before they were published I wonder? As someone who plays with numbers to pass the time, it sure doesn't look like it.
Edited by GemmaJF - 23 Sep 2011 at 12:45am |
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herpetologic2
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Posted: 23 Sep 2011 at 11:25am |
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Hello everyone
I have heard that a select few people in the herpetofauna consultancy business were consulted on this version of the reptile mitigation guidelines. I have to say I was not one of them but I do know that a certain fresh consultant (4 years in from leaving a well known NGO) has commented on this and advocates the use of small tiny ACOs in the thousands. The thing to remember is that NE want feedback on this. Another thought these are just 'guidelines' they are not the law - no where in the legislation does it say what and should be done - the IEEM CSS and these should in the future kerb the silly reptile work which is being undertaken due to following out of date guidance and advice. Jon |
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herpetologic2
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Posted: 23 Sep 2011 at 11:30am |
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Generally though surveys in March for the majority of projects is worthless as we would be dealing with the more numerous slow-worm where the optimal months for this species is April, June & September.
Grass snakes - optimal months for finding animals April, May, June Adders - March, April, May then August into September All surveys need to have weather information and definitely justified when carried out outside the optimal months - for example overcast rainy weather in July - I am going to have to read through the guidelines again - i am going to enjoy my workshops next year for FSC/ARC Trust and IEEM lol |
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GemmaJF wrote: