I would back up Tony's statement.

Last year we never got to the bottom of a news story on BBC Radio Derby about adders translocated from a road scheme site in their radio station catchment area (North Staffs and southern 2/3 of Derbyshire). According to one of my toad crossing co-ordinators, who heard the broadcast some weeks before he told me, they were taken to Cumbria (approx 150 miles away) to be released. WHY???? There are suitable sites within their local range, where they used to occur, which now have appropriate management and ownership so that the reasons for their original extinction no longer apply.

Does anyone really know how much of this sort of movement currently goes on in this country.

PS What does "Natural England are aware of the project" mean? Are they supporting it officially or financially.

Is this the announcement we have be waiting for? I would not translocate adder outside their home range. Also, in which county is the receptor site Graeme? I'm sure we would all be interested to know.

Chris, I think you are looking at the tip of an ice burg regarding long range translocations that seem to have very little logical explanation (other than perhaps it was convenient)

Chris

Try this link to adders which were moved from the A74 road scheme - might be a case of Radio Derby mis-reporting the A74 work - maybe not!

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/newsrele.nsf/WebPressReleases/C22C518DDA31A0E48025717300424F3D - http://www.forestry.gov.uk/newsrele.nsf/WebPressReleases/C22 C518DDA31A0E48025717300424F3D

I would echo the views of Tony/Chris/Gemma here on the option of long distance translocation - any 'scientific' studies pertaining to translocated animals could be just as easily carried out on animals translocated within their home range. Mind you, I'm not sure what you can measure that might be attributed directly to the effects of translocation, other than perhaps a notable mortality (food availability ?, predation ?, stress ?), dispersal (adaptability to a new environment ?, stress ?), reproductive issues (mortality, dispersal)

All of these problems could obviously also be present in many 'sub-optimum' populations that have never been translocated, and so I am fairly cautious about any prospective studies that set out to 'benchmark' the success, or otherwise, of translocation.

I agree John, any project to gauge the success of a translocation needs a great deal of work. I carried out a very short distance translocation of adder in 2005. It was a success mainly because we identified the hibernation site and simply moved them from a foraging area back 'home'. With a bit of thoughtful timing this worked well. I didn't have much opportunity for follow-up but a good proportion were identified as having overwintered successfully (along with many more that were never part of the mitigation). The foraging area was only subjected to some low impact maintenance work, and later restored.

I cannot see any merit in distant translocation of adder and hope Graeme has this mind with his open call for adders that 'need' translocation. In particular I see very different habitats in my work that adder will use, this doesn't in my mind suggest that they can be mixed and matched.. heathland isn't chalk grassland etc etc so choice of a receptor site is never an easy thing for adder. In my mind it should always reflect the donor site or indeed already be part of the animals home range.

Translocating adders any great distance is a big NO NO (the newforest to Bedford trans' aside) -

Where abouts is the receptor site Graeme?

I have adders on most of my sites this year but none of them will be moved greater than 1km into the surrounding habitats found at each site - which is preferrable to 'bucket and dumping' them onto external receptor sites or rounding them up into a small in situ holding area.

What are your aims and objectives Graeme?

JC 

Because that happened and it shouldnt really of happened like it did - so that aside because it appears that the animals are now breeding on the site......it was a relocation of baby adders mind so they may have a better chance of settling into the new habitat

though of course this means that genetic stock from the New Forest reptiliary which may have come from other parts and not just the new forest are now residing in Bedfordshire!

JC

Graeme are youy there?

What bothers me and I'm sure Graeme has all this in hand, is why is the site being defined as suitable for an adder translocation, with no adders to translocate as yet it appears.

I would have thought

a) If it is suitable they are already there or

b) it is isolated from any existing adder and therefore not suitable for a translocation at all, considering that the main problem facing adder is isolation from other populations - no conservation gain in creating another isolated population?

Would be nice to know Graeme what is planned.

Graeme, you have been 'working on adder projects for thirty years' surely you would have enough data from this extensive time period to answer some questions relating to adder translocations?

It seems to be a bit odd to offer a 'receptor site' to consultants when they should be keeping their adders in their local area - which can be done with relocation and short distance translocation - there is no need to send them off to your site at all is there?

JC

Seems this thread wasn't aimed at debate at all, lots of questions no answers. Oh well we'll all just have to keep bumping it to the top of the pile until Graeme explains it all to us.

What's the announcement then Slippery42????

We have only just joined this forum but have been following the discussion with interest as observers. The NF - Bedford translocation has been mentioned several times and it seems worthwhile to explain what happened in more detail for anyone who does not know. (Though we did write a short account in Herp Line 10 (Autumn 2003).The adders were one year old juveniles, captive bred in the New Forest reptiliary. The first release by the Forestry Comission was in 2000 though we were not told about it until some time afterwards. The site chosen was very near an area where adders had been reported years ago but had apparently been wiped out by the foresters.

None were seen until 2003 when we discovered they had moved away from the release site to a different habitat. Since then there have been two more similar releases on the advice of EN (as was). As far as we can tell from the head patterns the survival rate is approx 25%. They have certainly bred successfully.

So what took place was not so much a translocation but a release into the wild of captive bred specimens. There are no plans for any further releases.

The downside is not so much the distance (though it would have been better to have, say, bred captive local animals at Whipsnade for example) but

1. the lack of genetic diversity in the release population

2. attention has been diverted from other local, but far more elusive, populations.

We are concerned about the numbers of people who, thanks to the publicity, visit the site to see and photograph them: could this drive them away? Last year an adder was reliably reported from a site where they had not been seen for 20 years so we cannot be sure that the old population does not survive.

How can you be sure they were captive bred from the reptiliary - as I know that this facility is stocked from adders collected elsewhere in Hampshire - perhaps gravid females were placed within the reptiliary.

Again it was regretable that this long distance translocation of 1 year old adders happened at all - as it was outside their range and the origins of the animals are not known.

Adders have disappeared from places only to be found in suitable habitats etc which are not visited by people as often as before within very close proximity to originally known sites.

Adders are elusive and avoid detection for many years in terms of normal site users - hence the percieved decline etc

Were the young adders photographed prior to release in Bedfordshire?

as how can the survival of the adders be determined?

I suspect that moving young animals short distances would have the most likely success rather than adult animals which have established ranges.

Slippery any more info on your research project?

JC

To answer the various questions:

We cannot speak for the first release, which were not photographed by FE, but we were told all the juveniles came from long resident females. There was no reason to disbelieve this.

The adders we released were all photographed. The very approx. survival rate was calculated by dividing the original number released by the the number of identifiable adults before adders born at the site complicated the picture.

There is no funding but the adders are over monitored in that too many people go there to photograph them which is useful if they pass the information on to us but the potential disturbance worries us. If people just want to see adders they are so easy to find that hardly anyone one bothers to monitor the population at Stockgrove for example. That said the site where an adder was seen for the first time in 20 years is being checked on a daily basis mostly by the person who saw it but so far - alas - no joy.

Once the release had taken place we could hardly refuse to monitor the results and further releases were always forseen once the original one appeared to have succeeded. There was always the chance that we might learn something and the adders' rejection of what appeared to be suitable habitat in favour of a different one is instructive. Something that should be born in mind with translocations.

For better of worse Beds is a centre of introduced animals thanks largely to successive Dukes of Bedford. The year after the initial adder release a number of dormice (bred, we think, at London Zoo) were released at the same reserve. It had been intended to release them somewhere in Worcs but the F&M epidemic forced a change of plan. They have also deserted the original habitat in favour of a different one.

Graeme you seem to be full of contradictions. When you started this thread you posted the following:

Forum: Adder
Topic: Adder Translocation
Posted By: slippery42

I have a site which is ideal for uses as a receptor site.

I am looking for a number of adders which will be monitored as part of a scientific study.

Natural England are aware of the project. 

If you are a consultant involved in the movement of adders this year please send me a private message.


You then edited the post. Surely if you want consultants to provide adders for your 'project' you would want to tell us all about it instead of playing games.

Graeme you seem to have removed the post you made regarding Naturally Wild getting a lot of money for this project. Why did you do that?

http://www.naturallywild.co.uk - http://www.naturallywild.co.uk

Lets hope we can encourage old slippery to reconsider the translocation project eh especially broadcasting an available receptor site for any consultant working with these animals

Adders should not be translocated (IMO) further than a few km (max) I feel that adders should not be moved too far away from their hibernation sites etc as you can lose animals and colonies that way - though evidence would be good

the bedfordshire release may be successful we should conclude that this is acceptable for development led projects etc

Jon

Of the 20 male adders released in that study Tony only 8 were recovered - true the novel genes were helpful but not a good survival rate maybe?

I may be wrong though

Regards

Jon

The genetic repair worked though looking at the follow-up report. Remembering that the males came from a large donor population that could perhaps afford the loss I think they got a very good result in saving the isolated population and this was the primary aim. The fact they were able to recover any of the males and return them back to their original location was pretty amazing I think. Looking at the original paper the isolated population was getting pretty close to extinction when they carried out the experiment.

I also think the success of this adult translocation might have had a lot to do with the fact that existing females were at the receptor site to hold the new males interest and also that there was very limited (like none at all) suitable surrounding habitat giving limited opportunity for dispersal.

[QUOTE=armata]Despite the fact that the adder is the most intensively studied snake in the work we are still in the dark about some aspects. Trouble is it takes a long time to discover some of these aspects.
QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply Tony. Yes I realised that shifting adders about is not now considered a good thing really.

I think we all love them all the more because we don't yet know it all!

I should think with all your experience you, perhaps more than most of us, can almost be certain what would be very suitable habitat for adders and what would not. Have you come across any places which appear to be prime adder territory and aren't or vice versa? 

Forum: Adder
Topic: Adder Translocation
Posted By: slippery42

The only thong I am prepared to say is that we (NWC) have funding for a
reasearch project on a scale which has NEVER been available to any one
else in the past.

The project is a long term one.

So why are you asking for adders from other consultants? will they be providing the funding eh? in return for your receptor site services perhaps?

JC