Number of clear trap days

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 administrator wrote:

It should be Steve, but I'm hearing more and more about avoiding fencing and manipulating habitat in early stages. To me it just seems like carnage for the reasons you have given. God only knows we moan enough when conservation organisations do this kind of thing!
We don't manipulate habitat until ACO are practically not producing, certainly I would want all gravid animals off the site and most if not all the adults. Then we strim between the ACO leaving little islands. By then though I would be looking at just a few individuals left onsite and just a few weeks before calling an end to ACO capture work. Sometimes we find grass snake get 'flushed' under the ACO. Been there all the time not using the ACO but when the covers gone, they hide under them. 
I can't imagine why anyone would think it was a good idea to reduce available habitat early during the works for animals that are going to be stuffed in a bucket and moved. But didn't Jon post something from NE a while back saying this is the way they wanted to go to reduce client cost and time??? (Hopefully I misunderstood it) 

Had some more thoughts on this recently. It depends on what reptile species you have present on the site and the weather conditions during the trapping sessions. 

I've been working on a reptile mitigation for the last 18 days undertaking capture effort for grass snake. We are attempting to do 30 days as it is a low populaiton (based on survey data). We are about to start undertaking habitat manipulation where we create islands and gradually reduce the amount of cover and ACO for the reptiles. I think that now that we have done 18 days of capture, that now is an acceptable time to start on the habitat manipulation (ie 13 more days left). 

I agree with whoever stated earlier in this thread that it is down to the consultant to decide what is termed reasonable effort. In my mind, I would need to be satisfied that I have undertaken adequate reasonable effort before proceeding to the destructive search.

At the end of the day, as long as you can demonstrate that you have undertaken reasonable capture effort and reasonable measures and that you are satisfied that the site has been successfully cleared of reptiles, then this is all that matters.

Edited by sussexecology - 17 Feb 2012 at 12:55am