Where now for the RAUK website?

I guess Steve we have the question 'is RAUK heading towards becoming an organisation in its own right'... now there is an interesting thought. Certainly beyond the original concept I had for the website.

The least it should be though is a one stop shop for news within the UK herp world and information in my view. Not sure it has achieved that for a number of possible reasons.

Yeah I fully understand that RAUK did come first - but the new name was needed I feel due to the lack of direction from what was the HGBI and its Secretariat - it was great when Jim Fosters was in his Common Species project post but after that it was lost - so now we have the new name and we have ditched the secretariat - welll they also agreed that they were not interested in ARG's - so we felt we needed a new name - and so the ARG UK was born last year

I feel that the RAUK has a lot to offer the herp conservation world on so many levels - ready access to the experts, instant answers to various problems and I do feel that we need to increase the standards in consultancy work - one action is to get consultants to send in their records to local recorders - this will be part of my course this September for Reptile Mitigation (IEEM course) where I will be publicsing the RAUK, ARG's NARRS etc - you have to face facts and it is the consultants that are collecting the most records generally - they are paid to do this so we need to tap into this source of records

Jon

Gemma

I too think that the forum does fullfil a useful purpose not covered by the web sites of the other main herpetological organisations. I tend to visit the others for specific reasons ie ARG-UK for contact details of ARG Groups, notices of meetings & events. However RAUK complements the other web sites as they do not cater for discussion of topics, unusual or even ordinary sightings etc. It also reaches many people who are not members of groups but just have an interest in the natural world. Although some sort of linkage with other organisations would be an idea, it definitely needs to stay independant.

On the slightly separate topic introduced by Jon, surely English Nature/Natural England and HCT should be pushing consultancies to pass their herp records onto Record Centres. I know all the arguments why it doesn't happen to a greater extent. Still it is difficult when I get passed information by consultants who ask me not to report it but just want to let me know where they've turned up great crested newts but the client won't let them publicise it. I've got several locations that I just have to keep in my head in case there is a future proposal that will threaten the area.

For gods sake

why are they twitchy about the biological records being used for information purposes especially when they have been forwarded to English Nature (license returns), DEFRA (survey information) and of course to local authorities (part of ecology reports for planning applications) all of which are government bodies so therefore all the information is available in the public domain.

What is the point of doing the survey in the first place if the records are not used for conservation purposes?

Gem, the course I think is more expensive for non members - double I think

I feel that my job is being a 'conservationist' through my consultancy work - I am planning to send all my records to the relevant people/groups or organisations in Dorset, Surrey, Hampshire, Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire - on one job in Hampshire my contract obligated me to send a summary of records to HBIC -

I do not buy into the confidentiality fo biological records - also I do not think the client buys the copyright to the records - the advice and reports etc produced from the surveys is what the client is paying for - so with the landowners permission all biological records should be fed into the local recording system or the BRC or RAUK!

A ha back onto the topic.....

Jon

Hi David

I think that most people recognise the excellent work that is published within the BHS journals and long may it continue.

I also noticed that there are links to RAUK and others on the BHS website so I suppose that an article about RAUK for the natterjack may be a good way of getting the web address in this publication

Regards

Jon