Declining number of Great Crested Newts

GemmaJF wrote: They should be considered Suzy, what happens often in reality is that it is left to the planning authority to 'flag' the need for protected species surveys and make it a condition of planning consent.  This is just one of several parts of the 'system' that fail. Particularly when even if they do make it a condition that surveys are undertaken there are 'consultants' who will quite happily walk over a site and say nothing is there for £50.... This is where records/local ARGs come in to do the job of the planning authority for them... but then you need someone who is willing to keep tabs on all the planning application, write emails, letters etc etc.

When to ask for a survey on a site which is not previously known to support a given species can be difficult. The LA will not have the luxury of requiring a survey for each and every pond that may be affected by development - instead they have to balance the likelihood that the species will be there, versus the cost and delays to the applicant, bearing in mind their duties under the Habs Regs 9(3).

Ideally, the LA ecologist would have guidelines setting out when surveys are required, but in general terms I look at a) the suitability of the habitat b) the known distribution of the species c)connectivity with known populations. Taking a precautionary approach of course.

I don't know about England, but in Wales policy is that surveys cannot be conditioned - they always have to be undertaken 'up-front' to support the planning application, as the presence of a protected species is a material consideration and must be considered when the application is determined. Again, I can only speak for S Wales, but conditioned surveys (in the absence of a prior survey) are virtually unheard of here.

Noodles wrote: Whilst on the subject of another thread, the 'recently' published book 'The Crested Newt - A Dwindling Pond Dweller' cited a rate of GCN site loss at 1 or 2 % per year, meaning an (unmitigated) global extinction in 50 - 100 years.....

I assume this rate of loss is for 'known' GCN sites, which begs the question, what proportion of 'actual' GCN sites are 'known' about.

Certainly in S E Wales I would say that proportion is low. Many counties have not had a systematic GCN survey, or even a county-wide pond survey, and ad hoc surveys by ARGs regularly turn up new populations. Even in as well a studied, and very small, county like Cardiff, a pond turned up a previously unknown GCN population a few years ago.

However, it's not unreasonable to assume that the rate of known GCN pond loss is the same as the rate of loss of populations that we don't know about.

Without having read (or even bought ), the book quoted above, is the 1 - 2% figure the gross rate of loss or the net rate, taking into account losses offset by creation of new ponds?

GemmaJF wrote: Right next to a site I surveyed last year a walk over survey concluded 'low potential for reptiles'. What total nonsense, I was pulling out animals on the first day of my survey and the adjacent development area was optimal habitat. It gets a little frustrating at times.

Now there's a familiar story!

Edited by Matt Harris - 06 Nov 2012 at 3:42pm

It's a thought isn't it that in x years we could have totally failed and actually see extinction of a protected species. 

Edited by GemmaJF - 06 Nov 2012 at 4:43pm

will wrote: 'In simple terms if GCN returned to the wider countryside there would be less need for developers who don't want the responsibility to carry the can, less fire fighting and less concern if an individual site were to be lost.' - which is why, in my very humble opinion, the law needs to be changed to recognise the importance of conserving populations (ie the integrity of the species) and so a developer would pay to create 50 ponds, say, at a thousand pounds each, rather than spending the same money shifting half a dozen GCN from being squashed (which is probably a fraction of the number that get squashed by cars on the road next to the development in a single night once the proud new owners of the houses have moved in to them...)