Slow worm safety

Hi all,

Long time no see, but trust me, my interest in UK herps has not diminished in the slightest during the interim
Maybe this post will be of help to others in similar situations.

I noticed that in my garden, Slow worm fatalities and predation often centred around the concrete path and had sometimes observed the animals struggling to gain traction when crossing it.
Of course, all that desperate thrashing around will attract feline attention and as such, chewed up animals or autotomised tails were a fairly regular (and needless to say, saddening) find.

So, having first covered the path with a thick layer of dirt, I then used cannibalised sections of pallets, planks etc scrounged from skips to construct a ‘slow worm subway’ for safe passage.

While not wanting to leap to any conclusion, that was 2 years ago and no lifeless Slow worms or parts thereof have been discovered since.
I know the animals use the ‘subway’ as I kept some sections as ‘removable inspection covers’ and have found Slow worms beneath them.

Finds of neos around the garden have increased, so the population seems to be breeding well too.

NB the concrete path is wider than it appears in the photos. There is substantial vegetative ‘overhang’!
It was there when I moved in, there’s no way I would install anything like that. Too much of the world is buried under concrete already.

Edited by Liz Heard - 28 May 2023 at 3:02pm