March 4, 2024 • 55 mins
Welcome to the Ecology Academy podcast hosted by Richard Dodd. In this episode, we delve into the transformative journey of Jon Cranfield, a herpetofauna specialist and director of Herpetologic Limited. Starting from his childhood passion for ecology, we journey through his extensive experience dealing with protected species and examine his commitment to ecological conservation through his role with Hampshire Isle White Amphibian and Reptile Group.
The episode unwraps in-depth talks about John's concerns on mitigation strategies, the need for innovative thinking, and biodiversity considerations. It highlights new insights into Great Crested Newt conservation and discusses different licensing routes, their implications, and their impact on both development projects and wildlife.
Explore the importance of understanding specific needs and adapting to scenarios in the process of newt conservation. Spotlights are also thrown on the challenges posed by rigid guidelines and the balance in considering factors like the cost, inclusion of other ecological elements, and achieving responsible development through effective conservation measures.
We examine case studies of successful mitigation sites and discuss how advancements in technology are influencing the new conservation landscape. The use of environmental DNA for pond monitoring and the efficiency of detection dogs in finding newts in terrestrial habitats are discussed and evaluated.
The episode also dives into the role of Natural England policies, long-term follow-up management, and monitoring in achieving successful newt conservation. It concludes with a deep discourse on modern conservation strategies, acknowledging the demands of managing ponds, the concept of creating new ponds, and the wider complexities involving newt conservation.
The podcast winds up with an overview of an upcoming workshop on Adder Ecology Survey and Mitigation and some prudent advice to budding ecologists about blending traditional techniques with technological advancements. The episode ends on an inspiring note, emphasizing the need for active practitioners in linking ecology and people.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I'm Richard Dodd, and you're listening to the Ecology Academy podcast.
This is a show where we get to talk and learn about all things ecological,
including interviews with top ecologists, both employers and employees,
those working with ecologists, and also aspiring and inspiring career-seeking
individuals setting out to make a difference.
(00:21):
The show aims to provide you with insights, advice, and inspiration to help
you succeed and excel as an effective ecologist, and to make a real difference
to our natural environment.
Joining me today on the Ecology Academy podcast is John Cranfield.
Now, John is a director of Herpetologic Limited, a company that provides expert
(00:43):
ecological consultancy on amphibians, reptiles and their habitats across the UK.
With over two decades of experience as a herpetophore specialist.
John has extensive knowledge and skills in handling, protected
species licensing using various methods such
as pitfall trapping aquatic funnel trapping edna and
newt detection dogs as a recording officer for
(01:06):
the hampshire isle of white amphibian and
reptile group john is an active member of the amphibian
and reptile groups of the uk a network of volunteers dedicated
to the conservation of native native herpetofauna
so john welcome to the ecology academy podcast yeah nice
to be here thanks that's i will struggle over a struggle
over the word herpetoforna yes that's
(01:30):
that's correct pronunciation is
it or pronunciation yes herpetoforna yeah that's
good my company name is also quite memorable because most people stumble over
it yeah exactly exactly so you know we've i've got through those so that's the
good thing so john uh so you're welcome but um yeah i mean let's jump straight
(01:52):
into this so So in terms of, you know,
so tell me, we've had a little conversation before we started recording.
You know, you've got this varied career, but tell me a little bit about your
background and how you got into reptiles.
Well, it goes all the way back to when I was 10 years old, when I was a keen
birder and I used to go out birdwatching with my dad.
(02:18):
And I was it was we had moved to a new new area and we were investigating,
looking in the local woodlands and scrubbing stuff for birds.
And my dad spotted a piece of corrugated iron in a horse field.
And he got me and my brother still remember it now, actually.
And he lifted it up and there was two slow worms underneath
(02:39):
and i had never seen a slow one before then and that
was where my passion for reptiles particularly
started prior to that we had always had ponds and we used to rear frogs from
frog spawn and all the things used to do in the garden ponds and stuff previous
address and we had built ponds in this new house as well but then it was the
(03:02):
idea that you can go and catch things that look like snakes locally.
And that's where my interests started. And then I went to university and studied marine biology.
What year was that? When did you start? When we started in 1996,
I started at Portsmouth University, a biology degree, which I specialise in to marine biology.
(03:24):
And I studied shortfin pilot whales for my dissertation.
And at the same time we had marine turtles
out there as well so there was
always this sort of herb to fauna field field to
my interest in in biology and things like that and
then i did an environmental management and
postgraduate certificate and i
(03:47):
was at the same time i was getting involved with the amphibian reptile groups
which is a network of groups volunteer groups groups across the UK and at the
time it was the Herpivorna groups of Britain and Ireland and I was carrying
out surveys in Hampshire, which I was based down here.
During university so it was basically my
(04:08):
hobby and then when i left university in college i
had given a talk about great crested newts to
a or to back up back at my mum and
dad's area to i think it
was a wildlife society and someone in the audience had
had a was working at the wildlife trust and they
had a request for a newt ecologist from a consultancy
(04:31):
in peterborough and it was the robert stebbins consultancy so
and he recommended me so
they contacted me and then i went
up to peterborough to see bob's office which was
his house i also saw his oversized garden
pond which he had in the
region of three or four hundred clumps of frog
(04:53):
spawn he's a big frog fan and he
was nurturing this population and it's like so you know
a population in a garden in the middle of peterborough and it
was we went through a new mitigation scheme that you
want me to work on you want me to become it was quite easy
to become the licensee and relatively straightforward i had a bit of experience
(05:14):
in new surveys i that was my first job in bedfordshire and i was organizing
the monitoring surveys and also the people that were carrying out pitfall trapping
and that's where i I stumbled into consultancy, basically.
Prior to that, I had one previous experience of consultancy the year before,
(05:35):
which was a reptile translocation.
And it was quite horrendous, really.
It was very much lip service, you know, put a fence around the edge of the site,
move all the animals to the outside.
And it was a horrible experience that I didn't want to repeat. But.
When I went up to Peterborough and spoke to the consultancy and how they viewed
(05:58):
the work and, you know, it was down to me to decide what to do on site,
which was the complete opposite of my of the previous job,
which was just a subcontract when I wasn't listened to.
But so that's where I started and that's where I established my company in 2003.
And it's just affected my job is was my hobby.
(06:21):
And that's what I do for a living. yeah yeah it seems
like you see a large part of your life has
been dedicated so far yeah to uh yeah to
better foreigners so in terms of i mean i mean because i've been.
On put my hands about i've been on a couple of your training courses which are
brilliant by the way and this is going back a fair few years
i must admit and so yeah i always remember
(06:41):
taking away from your training courses a how
passionate you are about the subject matter and
also the obviously you're
teaching people about the survey techniques and you know mitigation and so
forth but it's also what i've taken away from from
the courses is your the how
(07:02):
you want to advance survey and
an understanding of the conservation part
of of as a newton reptile work
as well so that would be that's what i've taken away from the
course is that fair to say that it's not just about um you
know the day job it's also about um maybe a bit
more progressive yeah i mean it's it
(07:23):
becomes a protected species particularly well
particularly reptiles they have a poor deal when
it comes to what people do for them it's always
about you know the surveys is the magic
seven you do seven survey visits you assess
how many animals are on site potentially and that
gives you a number of how many days you can have to
(07:45):
trap out in order to carry out
your obligations towards them but there's no real it's one of the main sort.
Of criticisms of reptile mitigation or even amphibian mitigation is the lack
of follow-up and management which is required to make a successful mitigation
investigation strategy.
(08:05):
I mean, there are some cases where, say, you've got grass snakes in a garden
and you're going to redevelop the garden and you find one grass snake or a few
grass snakes in a compost bin or in the garden pond.
And then you basically, yeah, the grass snakes may be there for a certain part
of the year, but then they disappear. And that's what...
(08:26):
You know, you can do a lot of good for grass snakes by, for example,
creating more ponds in a woodland somewhere or creating egg laying sites for
them rather than focusing too much on the individuals.
Obviously, female snakes are important because they need to go and find egg
laying sites and breed and produce the next generation.
(08:47):
But it's also like a set sort of survey, assess impacts and then go immediately
to translocation. And that's possibly because reptiles are left possibly as
an afterthought. That's what it sort of feels like.
And it's sort of protected species are separated from the ecology or even biodiversity,
(09:09):
which is a bit of the rage at the moment.
But of course, it's a separate thing to doing those other things.
And adders particularly is another interest of mine. I have got a training course
coming up in Essex in April, which we're going to be launching the booking form for that quite soon.
(09:29):
And we're looking at a vulnerable species like adders, which are quite widespread,
but also quite vulnerable to land use changes and development.
And it's more thinking outside the box rather than just sticking rigidly to
the guidelines. Because, I mean, there is lots of flack that's thrown at consultants
that they're looking to make as much money as possible from a project.
(09:52):
And that's probably fed into by the, you know, that in Great Crested Newts,
you've got, you know, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.
It all sort of increases the cost of a project.
Whereas there are other options obviously that are open to us now but there's
also it's you know the the ecology of the animal needs to be thought about a
(10:15):
bit more and integrate it with biodiversity.
Okay well thank you for that so in terms of
looking at your career i
mean just focus on a great question newt for for the
time being so in terms of i mean
how did you you yeah how did
you obtain your survey license what was the process when you
(10:36):
went for your server license when you first obtained it and then
we could talk then a little bit about what's required now or
your understanding what's required now yeah thinking back
it would have been an english nature i think it would be english nature license
that's the right name isn't it before that was the ncc and it was an english
nature license and it was you have to get references back then and what happened
(11:01):
is that they were training courses to go on and you can get.
You can go on a training course and you get like one sort of reference or referee, perhaps.
There are also volunteer groups that you go out on surveys and then eventually
you build up your experience and then you apply for your own survey license.
(11:21):
And I think it was slightly different back then. The rules were slightly different.
I think egg searching wasn't licensable because it wasn't considered to be too.
Or was it the other way around? I think torching depends on the strength of your torch.
For a while, torching was an unlicensed method because they didn't feel that
(11:42):
it disturbed newts as much as what they do now with big, powerful torches.
So back then, that's what I could seem to remember. That's how I got my license
for all counties of England.
And now it's sort of evolved into class licenses.
So I've got a class two survey license,
which enables me to do aquatic funnel
(12:04):
trapping take by hand and so
that's using artificial cover objects aquatic funnel
traps and torching egg searching
and it's and did i say
yeah and pitfall trapping i can do limited pitfall trapping i've
recently registered our reserve for some
pitfall trapping this march where we're going
(12:24):
to be carrying out limited numbers of
pitfalls on drift fences around breeding ponds
for i think it's up to 20 days is i
can do that as many sites as i could get round i suppose but i need to register
that with natural england before i do that so it's slightly different now i
mean it's it's you see that often in linkedin that people report when they get
(12:48):
a new license and new licenses are still being.
Given to to people and they often have class one
licenses because i don't think there's much focus on pitfall
trapping but it's pitfall trapping
is interesting because you can find out where newts are dispersed to
and you can find whether certain habitats you've
(13:09):
created previously have been have been
adopted by the newts you know so i gather
it's a similar sort of process but it's definitely if
you have never had a license you go to do some training and
you need to have references from people that you've worked
with I think that's how it's how
it's done now I mean because I'm now on a class license I
(13:31):
renew my license every year and you
add you can add techniques so if
I wanted a drusby trap license I'll have to go and get
training to do that because it's a separate I
think it's a separate license now it's I think it's called a box trap
trap so i don't generally have jujube
license but i do use aquatic funnel traps which are not
(13:52):
just bottle traps but things that minnow traps
or shrimp traps and the other thing that i probably
need to look into is for disease screening
i would have to add swabbing taking
samples from a live amphibian and then
the other thing would be using endoscopes so if
you're using and detection dogs and you find a burrow.
(14:14):
Which is large enough to get an endoscope down i would
need to add that to my license potentially because
if you're using a light on the end of an endoscope down a tunnel and you find
a newt then you're technically disturbing it so there's all these sort of pitfalls
that you may need to add to a license to be able to be legal i suppose yeah
i mean i'm going back onto that training course i would attend it for yourself
(14:38):
i mean i say this This is quite a few years ago.
And I think at the time, I'm going to say I'm not a new person.
So in terms of, I mean, I've got limited knowledge and I'm certainly not,
you know, I think I've lapsed my license now.
But at the time, I remember you mentioning about these aquatic funnels and how,
(14:58):
you may use the word bonkers, that Natural England weren't recognising the use
of them. I don't know if that was true.
I can't remember what year that was, but did they recognize? Oh, I know.
Yeah. Cause it's, it's to do with the, to apply for a sort of a traditional,
protected species license.
(15:19):
So it was, was a European protected species licenses was deemed as a traditional license.
And what the issue is, is that you need to, what they didn't recognize was the
use of aquatic funnel traps, other than ones which are made from plastic bottles.
That's that was the issue the thing is
(15:39):
is if you're using density figures then
that has some application because if you're putting
out a number of traps in a pond and you're using one
which are more effective then you're going to have a slightly
different or a slightly higher
number of newts perhaps than you would with just bottle traps
but the problem with that is is that it's just based
(16:00):
on very wide margins so a medium
population is from 11 to 99 and you'll
go in some if you're catching nearer the 99
figure in bottle traps you it's trap density dependent so it's there were issues
with that but i think a lot of people got around it by just not mentioning that
they they were they were just aquatic funnel traps and the the method statement
(16:25):
said bottle bottle traps, I think, and they just didn't mention it.
I mean, the other thing is when they don't accept your license because you haven't
done bottle trapping, even though you've seen plenty in torch counting.
If you haven't done three out of the four methods, then they would knock you back on that as well.
And a good 15 years ago, I think there was a site that we became involved in
(16:49):
where the ecologist had done a survey.
And he's been doing surveys for donkey jeers. So he did a torch survey,
counted 50 newts in the population in two ponds.
So he felt that he didn't need to put bottle traps in.
And they said, no, you've got to repeat it. it so he
repeated it the next year and he got
(17:11):
the same figure from torch counting but a lot less in
the bottle traps that he had put out so he was
right but it's this sort of dogmatic approach
to the guidance i mean it is guidance it's
not the law but also it's also
the piecemeal way of applying the mitigation guidelines
so it's down in the mitigation guidelines in
(17:33):
2001 it was down to the professional judgment of the
consultant and just like if
you were using pitfall traps you have like a note
about how they are potentially dangerous for
not just newts but other animals as well so you have to be careful with using
pitfall traps you can't leave them for too long etc etc and the same guidance
(17:54):
is is put out for aquatic funnel traps and aquatic funnel traps made out of
plastic bottles can be really dangerous especially if they're left too long.
So you have to be really careful with that so the best way to.
To avoid that is to just use the information that you collect as torch counting
if it's clear water and you're counting all the newts there's no need to put
(18:18):
the bottle traps in because you're basically,
if you've got 100 newts in a pond and you're putting bottle traps
in then you're putting them at risk because you've got
20 newts in one bottle trap there's a
real risk of animals asphyxiating and passing
out and dying you know so it was
just those little debates that we've had along the way and so
(18:39):
and i think some people just you know
they they put in torch count data and they they explained why
they just use torch counting and i think that
natural england would accept that with with but they
would give you like a advice at the bottom of the the license
saying why you would you should use the
(18:59):
the trapping as well so it's yeah
it can be bonkers at times the way that things
are applied but also it's not strictly
sticking to the guidance as well which allows for
things to happen in terms of
i suppose progression over years then we know your experience to say you know
(19:20):
that that's uh you know you obviously you've got considerable experience over
is a 20 plus years it when it comes to putting together you know some sort of
a mitigation license application in.
Obviously there's various methods, various routes we can go down now.
I mean, before I think it was just like, I mean, again, my limited knowledge,
(19:42):
maybe just one traditional full license route.
Now we've got impact, we've got, you know, district licensing and so forth.
What, how do you perceive these changes over the past few years?
I mean, I can't remember what year it was, but I became a registered consultant
for a low impact class license, which effectively is covering the things that
(20:05):
you would not normally have licensed in the past.
So finding a new under a railway sleeper in a garden, for example,
was an example in our training that you would need a license because you're
moving a new town the way.
But in the past, you would say, well, that's not really having an impact on the newts.
Technically you are disturbing it because it's
in a place of shelter but then moving it to somewhere to safety
(20:28):
would would be fine and i think in a
development sort of sense it's you know the low impact on a
small number of newts on a small parcel of
terrestrial habitat outside you can't work on
ponds and then it's i think
it as they were bringing in district licensing and things
things like that the legal advice sort of
(20:48):
meant people were using non-licensed method statements so if they had situations
where there weren't any newts and you could put your development on there you
can avoid getting a license if you're not impacting newts for example if you're
not having to pick them up and move them then that's not a licensable,
action and I think also the advice about putting exclusion fencing up.
(21:12):
As long as the newts can migrate around a site and get to their breeding sites
and their hibernation sites,
then again, that's not breaching the legislation technically,
and I think it's this sort of being emboldened to provide the evidence to enable
you to assess the situation in terms of its impact on conservation status and
(21:33):
now we do have what are called district level licensing,
licensing which also includes organizational licenses
which are held by nature space on
behalf of various organizations and i do
know other companies have got organizational licenses as well
which covers a working area
basically so for district level licensing the name sort of comes from a district
(21:57):
or a county and generally speaking that's administered by natural england or
a local authority so an example would be dorset council they administer the
natural england license.
And then you've got the nature space license which
is effectively an organizational license that covers
(22:18):
the same sort of area and they they are
two different licenses at the workers
meeting they explained that natural england has a particular license which worked
on the district level and then you have nature space which is an organizational
licenses which serves the same function and has the same goal so to conserve
(22:40):
newts in a geographical area basically and you,
if you've got a development site you apply to join the license and what they
do is a desktop desktop study to assess the impact and then you pay a conservation
payment to join the license to offset your impact on the population.
And that's not mandatory. So none of the district licenses are mandatory.
(23:06):
If you have no impact on newts, then you don't need a license and that can also be an avenue.
If you've got a development which you have a small impact, say up to 12 months
development, the project timetable, and you're impacting some terrestrial habitat, you can,
register the site under a low impact class license for example
(23:27):
and that has happened as well in in places
where the district license would be prohibitive in
terms of cost and also if you've gone down
the planning process and you don't have things attached to the planning permission
relating to newts you have to go back to the council and reopen that to in order
(23:48):
for district licenses to work
so the low impact class license and a traditional license is often post.
Plan of mission, basically. So in terms of when you're advising your clients,
so we're putting your consultancy hat on.
So advising your clients, you come across a piece of land and let's say it's
(24:11):
in Dorset, just for the time being.
I mean, how do you navigate, how do you advise your clients in terms of which
license route to go down?
And I'm using, I'm being, you know, this is a very simplistic point of view,
as in, imagine I have got, I know nothing about, and this is quite true,
(24:34):
know very little or nothing about licensing at all.
I'm your client. How would you advise me? You've come across a piece of land.
You found newts on it. Tell me about what you found and what we're going to
be doing in terms of licensing.
Yeah, it depends on, I think Dorset is natural England.
So they have risk maps. So the likelihood of finding newts in a certain area,
(24:58):
which is modelled on survey information and environmental DNA surveys of ponds,
which they did over, I think it was 2017,
2018, 2019 on various counties.
And it's modelled and then you have these areas which are risk maps.
So if you haven't got any survey information on
a site if you've got ponds within
(25:20):
250 meters of the red line boundary for example
i mean a normal course of events would be that you would go and survey them
for a plan application under the district license it has if you just just go
straight it depends on what what the development is how big it is how many ponds
you've got for For example,
(25:40):
say if someone wants to do, say a golf course, which they've got a sizable number
of ponds on it with lots of newts in them, that we know from historic,
records, say, you would advise to go and see, you devise your plan application to.
Basically join the district license and you can get the conservation payment.
(26:05):
And that's where it gets a bit interesting because it can be a substantial amount
of money before planning.
And sometimes that's not cost effective. So it's reviewing what information you have.
I mean, there are situations where people have done reptile surveys.
(26:26):
So you still have to do reptile surveys. You can join the district license. you
still have to do other ecology so dormice and
water voles or anything else has to happen
as well so an example would
be for reptile surveys you put out tins and felts and
things like that and then you find newts under those felts
and tins but you've got no ponds on site but you do
(26:47):
know there's great christian newts there now in
that situation you can you can probably still still rely on
the risk maps under natural england's license
as soon as you have newts in ponds the
risk maps are taken away and then it's
i think for every pond that you've got newts in it's a
four times multiplier for each pond conservation payment i
(27:10):
mean that's what they're called so it you know it makes
sense not to carry out the surveys for the
purposes of the ecological surveys you can assess them for
you know their suitability and it's so
you would you in some cases you would go straight to try and join
the district license and see it's down
to the client ultimately and they can do it themselves they don't really need
(27:34):
to do it with an ecologist that's the other thing that district licensing it
seems to push out new to ecologists albeit they would be advising you know ecologists
will be advising their clients and then they apply and then they they have the conservation payment.
But if I have had cases where the conservation payment is just not affordable, then we look at.
(27:57):
How we would do the development if we're before planning we
can apply the mitigation hierarchy for example
avoiding the impacts in the first instance can we
move stuff around to retain important habitats
it's all the similar sort of thing in bng is
following the mitigation hierarchy which is just as important in
great chris newts as well and then
(28:19):
it's hopefully you would have a biodiversity action
plan you know like a management plan and you would
look to maximize the opportunities for newts in
the area as well so it's it's always
the mantra that i've always heard in the early
noughties was that we all know how to look after
newts and it's to build ponds and create woodlands
(28:39):
and that's the main thing that we want to do and so if we
do that on site or if we do it by providing money to
a off-site provider that's that's
what's good for newts is plenty of ponds and plenty of
terrestrial habitat in the countryside so that's
how i would look at things and how i'd advise them it's
really down to a specific case-by-case basis really okay and in in terms of
(29:04):
your i mean i'm just asking you know in terms of your knowledge and experience
of you know elsewhere so i mean do you think that there may be there's an i
don't know how to phrase this you know an over-reliance,
an over-reliance on using district licenses or do they actually serve a purpose?
(29:25):
In some cases, yes, they would serve a purpose where you can't retain habitat
on site and stuff and you have to get a license to move newts out of the way.
You still have an obligation to newts on site, so you need a license to be able to move them.
So in some cases, joining a district license would be the possibly the quickest
(29:47):
way to get that license and you would take steps to avoid being reckless you
know damaging newts and damaging their habitats and stuff like that,
it's it's they do serve a
purpose in certain cases but then the golf
course example we have 27 ponds on the golf course and the conservation payment
is quite hefty and you have to work with natural England or nature space to
(30:14):
provide them with enough information to reduce that payment to an acceptable level.
Even when you're retaining some of the habitats which are important for them,
Natural England will consider them lost even if they're being retained. And it's.
Do drop the conservation payment in order to facilitate the development.
(30:37):
And in that way, you are facilitating keeping important habitats for newts,
which they will continue to use them even with a development around the sites.
We've got numerous sites where, I think the oldest mitigation site I know of was in 1987,
and they were building a car park in the
the back of a civic offices and they found
(30:58):
newts and they were going to fill the pond in but the
mitigation back then was to keep the ponds and they
put in tunnels through quite old walls and
things to residential areas and i surveyed that site in 2021 and it was still
a medium population in that pond because they were connected to the surrounding
(31:20):
residential areas so we know that newts will survive in suburban and urban areas for quite some time.
They're long-lived animals, so their generations will go on and on and on,
as long as they've got somewhere to breed and somewhere to shelter over winter and things.
Retaining stuff is important in terms of biodiversity and newt conservation.
(31:42):
As well as creating new habitats for them to colonise.
So it's just these little quirks that
you know means that the costs really mount up if
you've got too much of something already like great
christian needs it's i'm losing
my train of thought now i'm just
looking back and say i mean i say you know when i used to
(32:05):
do new work new new survey work you
know he was that standard you know going out and you
know the bottle traps the putting out the you know
they're doing the torching the egg searches you know
and that was pretty much it really but now we
have i mean there seems to be more novel techniques coming in
now so we got you mentioned before about using
(32:26):
detection dogs and e-dna so i
think you know how is this and you know obviously more
tools how has this affected what you
do as a conservationist consultants and also
you know what it means for great gretting new
conservation yeah i think it's the
technology of environmental dna in ponds is being
(32:48):
used to monitor ponds in a much much wider scale i know that to set up the district
licenses they had to survey hundreds and well i think it's thousands of ponds
and they used like one visit to go and sample a pond to find out if present
present, newts are present or not,
and they link that back to habitat suitability assessments on ponds.
(33:12):
And that was fed into the model and it churns out this sort of where newts are in the landscape.
Now models, it's helpful because you can do so many ponds over a very large area.
But the thing is, it's limited in terms of what it can tell you.
It can only tell you if the newt DNA is present within the pond.
(33:34):
The technology isn't set up to tell you how many newts are in there, for example.
There is a weak correlation to the score that you get from the DNA results.
So there's a score from 1 to 12 out of 12, which is the higher number,
sort of weakly correlates with higher numbers of newts in the ponds.
(33:56):
So what has actually happened in the survey field is that projects which have
got hundreds and hundreds of ponds, they triage the ponds like we used to,
with distance, barriers,
whether they're polluted, they've got fish, all those sort of things we used to do before.
And then quite a lot of the countryside ponds are in
(34:18):
a real dire state you know some of them really really rubbish so
the last thing you want to do is as a company is
to go back there four times so this technology enables
you to go there small window get a negative result and then you don't have to
go back to that pond and it's it's a tool to discount ponds from further survey
work which in a lot of cases is fine because the ponds are in such a horrible
(34:43):
state you know they're silted up they're overgrown own.
I remember seeing in a pond that I visited for 2013, I think it was for natural
England and the new enhancement project.
And it was a tire dump. It was full of tires. The farmer was just dumping tires in a big pond.
And it's like, you know, I wasn't even going to dip my net in to see if it had any water quality.
(35:07):
It probably would dissolve the net, you know? So
it was an eye opener a lot of the ponds in
the countryside are in a real terrible state and
for newts the best thing to do
is to restore those ponds or to build new ponds and lots
of them so the technology is is
good but there are repercussions and
(35:27):
i think people are just basically doing dna surveys
for newt surveys that's it they just go out and do
dna surveys and then perhaps
they're joining district street licenses and in some cases
people perhaps don't even see what a newt don't even
actually physically see a newt in their day-to-day work
perhaps which is slightly worrying because it's it's
(35:49):
it's always good to have newts in the hand and show people and even your clients
you know often they've said i've never seen a newt so if you've got a bucket
full of them and show them it gives a tangible thing but we're going to lose
that as we move more towards strategic or or, you know, modelled stuff elsewhere.
You know, if you charge a client for a service, they need to know what they're being charged for.
(36:14):
But, you know, I'm sure some clients are happy to just solve the problem of
needs by paying money somewhere else and then they don't have to worry about it.
But it's as me as a new conservationist, it's, you know, my work will change
undoubtedly in the future.
I just need to fit myself into the system where I can do the most good, really.
(36:37):
Pond creation, for example, it's really, really good. You can,
you know, create ponds for the district license in your area.
If you've got land and people are, you know, people are creating lots of ponds.
I mean, natural England, particularly are creating thousands of ponds over the
last five years, which is probably never been attempted before in this country.
(36:57):
So there are some really good aspects to it as well.
And, and the role of detection dogs as well now then. So, you know,
that's come along and it's really come a thing in the last, I want to say,
like last five years or maybe a little bit more.
Yeah, yeah, I think so. It was interesting when district licensing came in first.
(37:19):
I think a lot of people were told, don't bother with detection dogs for newts.
And I'm pretty certain that's what people advise some people.
But I think they have come into their own, really.
I mean, it's, they're so much more efficient. I mean, a terrestrial survey would
take at least 60 days, 30 to 60 days with lots of plastic fencing and pitfall traps.
(37:43):
And you basically, you know, all over the site, you've got all these fences and stuff.
It would just take a considerable amount of time to determine whether newts are on a site.
You can do physical surveys, you know, go out at night with a torch, look under things.
But you can you can find newts presence
of newts in a terrestrial habitat just in
a morning you know they they do cover a lot of land and
(38:06):
they are so much more you know so much more sensitive to finding those newts
were properly trained and validated dogs and it's it's just it's a bit of a
game changer really in terms of assessing terrestrial habitats and you can avoid those those impacts,
that's the key thing, is making sure that you avoid impacts on the,
(38:30):
so therefore you don't have to go down licensing in quite a lot of cases really.
And also when you're implementing a license, you need to make sure you're not
killing or injury killing or injuring animals when you're removing a fence,
for example, but that may not happen so much in the future, a lot less fencing
going in a lot less plastic, which I think is a good thing.
(38:54):
As well. No, no. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, it seems to be like a
really, well, increasing in popularity, the technique, as I say.
And I say we've covered a little bit about detection dogs on a previous podcast.
In terms of, I just want to bring our attention to the natural England policies.
(39:15):
And I don't know, but have you, you know, have you used natural England policies
in the past? And if you have, how have you used them?
And is it just a tool in the art, you know, to use?
Or is it something that, you know, we should only use occasionally?
I think it's, I think, yeah, when they came in, it was to try and reduce,
(39:38):
you know, try and reduce a dogmatic approach to licensing.
You know, I think delays to projects because you haven't got the survey information.
Information, maybe it was two years old, or you've just got torch counting on
a pond, for example, but normally you would be told to go back and do the full set of surveys.
(40:00):
Whereas what you would do is that you would take that information and the habitat
information, and you would make a professional judgment.
And then you apply the, I think it's EPS policy four, assessing the impacts
and you assess assess the worst-case scenario and putting mitigation into your application.
I think the big thing was things like quarries, where trapping out quarries
(40:25):
with newt fencing is quite dangerous.
And I think there was a project by, I'm trying to remember his name now,
he's from Atkins Realist, and it's gone out of my head. Oh, no, that's terrible.
It might come back to me. We'll come back to that.
But anyway, there was a quarry and for some significant time they were doing
(40:49):
mitigation where they weren't trapping out newts because the quarry was moving
around and digging up new areas.
And what they found was that the newts, Luke Lissett, Luke Gorman from Atkins Realist.
Really? I think that's the new name for Atkins. and that's
where that policy policy free came from was a lot
(41:10):
of his work with the quarry project where
he basically all he was
doing was you know digging new ponds basically with
the quarrying works so as they moved into a new area they left lots of water
bodies and lots of you know diverse structurally diverse habitats and with quarries
(41:31):
in general if if you've got a large quarry and And you would have areas which
haven't been worked for 40-odd years,
you know, got scrub on them and water bodies and things like that.
And the combination of the two meant that newts are fine. They,
you know, they really do well in those sort of areas.
But what was happening was...
(41:51):
People were going in with fencing down sheer faces of quarries and stuff and
trying to trap out newts from those areas.
And quite often you would find that you wouldn't be catching many newts.
So what they applied was that it became the policy to free, I think it was.
Use of temporary habitats, I think that one is.
(42:12):
Yeah, so you allow newts to colonize habitats, which are going to be developed in the future.
And it can be really successful. forward i
mean that's i mean i i don't think i've applied it myself recently because i
think it also you know you have to go to a slightly different part of the licensing
process in order to you know because there are charges for different types of
(42:37):
licenses and it makes it more complicated so.
But i would apply it again if it was available if if
i had a situation where we couldn't join in the district license say there
wasn't one and we had a client that had a certain
project that we could create lots of new
habitat then you would apply those principles those
policies i think you're allowed to apply two on
(43:00):
on a mitigation strategy right but
it's all about maximizing the benefit for needs you know you just
need lots of ponds lots of terrestrial habitat and then
you need the follow-up management and that's the thing that
district licenses are doing outside of the
red line boundary is that they're doing the creating the
ponds and then they're you know the follow-up surveys come through
(43:23):
the funding come from development so in
a sense it's it's large-scale mitigation which i
think a lot of lot of the time you can't really do with
a you know like a single site because generally speaking
you don't sort of work outside your area unless
you can compulsory purchase land next door for example
that's part of the process and i have i
(43:45):
have worked on projects where that that was able to
be implemented and it's just
the follow-up the follow-up is really important the monitoring
and the the follow-up management is really really
important so that's one of the i mean because
i think mitigation licenses they sort of last for five
years so five years worth of monitoring but that's
(44:05):
it it sort of stops but you need
to go on for a lot longer in order to to maintain.
New populations and do you think do you think that's as
you say that's one of my questions we're coming
to the end of our time today but is that
one of the sort of limitations of licences per se is that the number of is monitoring
(44:28):
effective in terms of the licensing requirements or as you may be alluding to
that longer periods may be more beneficial Yeah it's.
Definitely in order to get that,
uplifting status you do need to
manage ponds on a rotational basis and
(44:50):
really just creating new ponds in an area but then within
a license i think the monitoring sort
of stops about five years but then the
management continues because if you've got a management plan that goes
into the license but there's no further monitoring and
that is that is one of the main sort of
criticisms of you know site-based mitigation
(45:13):
work is that I mean largely the narrative
is it doesn't work for new sits it's better to be
off-site and where you can create lots of ponds etc
etc and it's and you
know you just build the ponds and newts will come it's what the general mantra
is but I think even where we've got a site in Essex where we've got thousands
(45:35):
of newts and we've created new ponds It has taken some time for them to colonize
and actually use them because when you do a new mitigation scheme,
you plant up ponds with broadleaf aquatic plants.
It's all making it as suitable a pond for newts to breed in as quickly as possible.
(45:55):
You don't do that with district licenses. You build a pond. It's completely
bare and it's all natural colonization.
The newts will find them but it's
just not giving them the right sort of environment and
it's what we've been doing for you know new ecologists
been doing as a matter of course you take some of the water mint for example
(46:16):
from the pond that's going to be destroyed and you put it in the new pond and
you establish it that way i mean the neverden site is the nature site that i've
managed and And what we found out was an ecologist at work for us,
he spotted plants in the ponds that we were destroying and he felt that they're
really important and he moved them over as well.
(46:38):
And we've managed to increase the number of ponds from the two that we lost. We now have six.
I think it's a fine leaf water drop work and it's just one of these things to
establish a pond quickly, you do need to plant it up. up.
But I think the criteria for the district license ponds, it's 150 square metres minimum.
(47:02):
And there's no planting up. So it's something that you have to get used to.
As a new to ecologist, you do like to move stuff over. I'm rambling.
I mean, there are flaws in every action, every scheme that you join.
There are little quirks and things that you have to deal with.
And also when you sign up to any of the licenses, if they haven't provided the
(47:26):
habitat, then you have to wait for that to be provided before you start your development.
So it's, it's not always plain sailing.
And I think what I would do in the future is probably have a hybrid sort of
license where you have delivery on a development site, as well as the remnant
impacts delivered elsewhere.
(47:47):
So, because I think there are some sites where you've got significant amounts
of public open space where you can put ponds in,
or you've got existing ponds and they can be part of the delivery of the strategic
license in the area as well.
But that's not how it was how it's been how it
was it was made basically i think with
(48:09):
the nature space organizational district license
there is a bit of you know
you can you can put in your survey information and your mitigation
and that would have an impact on on perhaps
the conservation payments whereas natural england they're
quite rigid that anything inside the red line boundary is
lost and that's what you have to mitigate for but i
(48:32):
think i have had cases where they've re-evaluated the
situation because ponds are being kept and one
example that we had was a old moat which was
being restored as part of a farm conversion and
they had taken it that it was being lost but of course it's an ancient scheduled
ancient monument so it was never never going to be lost so they reduced the
(48:55):
conservation payment so there is this sort of negotiation with the natural england
teams and the nature space teams to get you know um the best outcome for all involved.
Okay, well, John, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I mean,
in terms of, I say, sort of final question, you mentioned about there was something
coming up in April, you say, that you maybe want to remind us about?
(49:19):
Yes. It's on a site with lots of great question news, but it's actually to do
with Adder Ecology Survey and Mitigation.
And it's in our April 16th is the first workshop,
and we're basing that at the Langdon Hills Golf and Country Club,
which is a site with plenty
(49:39):
of ponds on it but also a number of adders as
well and we're going to be going through adder mitigation surveys
and techniques in april time
and it's going to be the booking form is going to
be released in well by next week so people
can join up and we would hope to have
a series of workshops because i'm sure people will be
(50:00):
signing up and we'll fill up up quite quickly so rightio
okay well i think this podcast will probably go
out in early march so you hopefully
get some from there but other than that i mean in terms of i mean what advice
would you give i mean look at someone at the very start of their career they
(50:21):
want to get into maybe you know you know neutral reptile conservation looking
for maybe advancing their skills and knowledge,
how would you advise someone in their early career as an ecologist in terms
of developing their skills and knowledge?
Ah, yeah. I would say definitely try and keep up with the old sort of field
(50:45):
techniques as well as the new technologies.
I think have a base, you know, you can volunteer for things at the amphibian
reptile groups or RUK or Amphibian Reptile Conservation.
Particularly myself, I'm a recorder of the Hampshire Isle of Wight Amphibian Reptile Group,
and we have surveys ongoing at ponds for amphibians, and we've had a great year
(51:12):
in Hampshire for frogs and toads and things,
but now we're going into the newt season, And then I would recommend you sort
of look up your local R group and go out and get some field experience.
And I think hopefully in the future, we'll be looking at disease testing in
the field as well with voluntary groups, which would be useful.
(51:34):
And yeah, just keep your hand in with, you know, the field techniques,
looking at ponds with torches, habitat suitability indexes and stuff like that.
It's I think that sort of is dying out a little bit it's going to,
eDNA and joining district licences so I would recommend that people keep up
with their field skills really Wonderful Yeah I couldn't agree more Yeah exactly
(51:58):
so we still need to know the basics well they're not even basics you know they're vital really Yeah,
it's so we keep that alive counting newts in ponds is still useful,
and it just you know I think we created a a population where we had 50 newts
in the peak count and then we've got a population of over 225 newts in 2018.
(52:22):
That was, I think, eight years.
So to see that many newts is remarkable and it's good to have that population.
You know, seeing what the newts look like and seeing their behaviour.
And also looking for, you'll find perhaps new things that people have never seen before.
(52:43):
I mean, I remember seeing BBC Wild Isles or something like that,
where horse leeches were engulfing common toadlets from ponds.
Or Springwatch, where adders were raiding birds' nests and things like that.
If you're not out there, you won't see this behavior that's never been seen before.
(53:03):
So it's definitely, I think other taxa groups are having the same issues,
really, that, you know, people are just not looking for invertebrates or,
you know, flowers and plants and stuff like that.
So it's always good to get out in nature, which is what we want people to be able to do, don't we?
That's it. Yeah. Not totally rely on, say, technology, AI, you know.
(53:26):
You know, there's nothing more enjoyable, I think, than actually,
you know, as you rightly say, you know, going out there and seeing the animal
or animals and plants of what, you know, we're sort of taking for granted,
you know, and what we're trying to conserve.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you've got to get close to nature.
(53:46):
Because one last thing is, I was speaking to a colleague recently and they mentioned
constantly about how the youth of today, the generations today are disconnected with nature.
And I think there are people that are dedicated conservationists or ecologists.
And I think these modern technologies, you're going to have a slight disconnect
(54:08):
with aquatic wildlife, for example, reduced just to a test tube.
I think that's really good, but also there's the ramifications of that,
of not knowing what things look like, for example, and having that connection is important.
I think everyone can agree that you need to keep connected with nature in order to value it.
(54:30):
So hopefully consultants will continue to do that into the future.
Indeed, indeed. Well, John, thank you so much for coming on to the Ecology Academy
podcast. Cheers. Thank you.
If you enjoy our show and want to help, then please click on the subscribe button
and rate us on your favourite podcast player, as that's how you can inspire
(54:53):
ecologists in the making,
help retain great talent and provide insights of our industry to a much wider
audience of why ecology really does matter. Thank you.
And remember, learning is a lifelong endeavour, so stay curious,
be adventurous and build bridges.
Music.
I'm Richard Dodd, and you're listening to the Ecology Academy podcast.
This is a show where we get to talk and learn about all things ecological,
including interviews with top ecologists, both employers and employees,
those working with ecologists, and also aspiring and inspiring career-seeking
individuals setting out to make a difference.
(00:21):
The show aims to provide you with insights, advice, and inspiration to help
you succeed and excel as an effective ecologist, and to make a real difference
to our natural environment.
Joining me today on the Ecology Academy podcast is John Cranfield.
Now, John is a director of Herpetologic Limited, a company that provides expert
(00:43):
ecological consultancy on amphibians, reptiles and their habitats across the UK.
With over two decades of experience as a herpetophore specialist.
John has extensive knowledge and skills in handling, protected
species licensing using various methods such
as pitfall trapping aquatic funnel trapping edna and
newt detection dogs as a recording officer for
(01:06):
the hampshire isle of white amphibian and
reptile group john is an active member of the amphibian
and reptile groups of the uk a network of volunteers dedicated
to the conservation of native native herpetofauna
so john welcome to the ecology academy podcast yeah nice
to be here thanks that's i will struggle over a struggle
over the word herpetoforna yes that's
(01:30):
that's correct pronunciation is
it or pronunciation yes herpetoforna yeah that's
good my company name is also quite memorable because most people stumble over
it yeah exactly exactly so you know we've i've got through those so that's the
good thing so john uh so you're welcome but um yeah i mean let's jump straight
(01:52):
into this so So in terms of, you know,
so tell me, we've had a little conversation before we started recording.
You know, you've got this varied career, but tell me a little bit about your
background and how you got into reptiles.
Well, it goes all the way back to when I was 10 years old, when I was a keen
birder and I used to go out birdwatching with my dad.
(02:18):
And I was it was we had moved to a new new area and we were investigating,
looking in the local woodlands and scrubbing stuff for birds.
And my dad spotted a piece of corrugated iron in a horse field.
And he got me and my brother still remember it now, actually.
And he lifted it up and there was two slow worms underneath
(02:39):
and i had never seen a slow one before then and that
was where my passion for reptiles particularly
started prior to that we had always had ponds and we used to rear frogs from
frog spawn and all the things used to do in the garden ponds and stuff previous
address and we had built ponds in this new house as well but then it was the
(03:02):
idea that you can go and catch things that look like snakes locally.
And that's where my interests started. And then I went to university and studied marine biology.
What year was that? When did you start? When we started in 1996,
I started at Portsmouth University, a biology degree, which I specialise in to marine biology.
(03:24):
And I studied shortfin pilot whales for my dissertation.
And at the same time we had marine turtles
out there as well so there was
always this sort of herb to fauna field field to
my interest in in biology and things like that and
then i did an environmental management and
postgraduate certificate and i
(03:47):
was at the same time i was getting involved with the amphibian reptile groups
which is a network of groups volunteer groups groups across the UK and at the
time it was the Herpivorna groups of Britain and Ireland and I was carrying
out surveys in Hampshire, which I was based down here.
During university so it was basically my
(04:08):
hobby and then when i left university in college i
had given a talk about great crested newts to
a or to back up back at my mum and
dad's area to i think it
was a wildlife society and someone in the audience had
had a was working at the wildlife trust and they
had a request for a newt ecologist from a consultancy
(04:31):
in peterborough and it was the robert stebbins consultancy so
and he recommended me so
they contacted me and then i went
up to peterborough to see bob's office which was
his house i also saw his oversized garden
pond which he had in the
region of three or four hundred clumps of frog
(04:53):
spawn he's a big frog fan and he
was nurturing this population and it's like so you know
a population in a garden in the middle of peterborough and it
was we went through a new mitigation scheme that you
want me to work on you want me to become it was quite easy
to become the licensee and relatively straightforward i had a bit of experience
(05:14):
in new surveys i that was my first job in bedfordshire and i was organizing
the monitoring surveys and also the people that were carrying out pitfall trapping
and that's where i I stumbled into consultancy, basically.
Prior to that, I had one previous experience of consultancy the year before,
(05:35):
which was a reptile translocation.
And it was quite horrendous, really.
It was very much lip service, you know, put a fence around the edge of the site,
move all the animals to the outside.
And it was a horrible experience that I didn't want to repeat. But.
When I went up to Peterborough and spoke to the consultancy and how they viewed
(05:58):
the work and, you know, it was down to me to decide what to do on site,
which was the complete opposite of my of the previous job,
which was just a subcontract when I wasn't listened to.
But so that's where I started and that's where I established my company in 2003.
And it's just affected my job is was my hobby.
(06:21):
And that's what I do for a living. yeah yeah it seems
like you see a large part of your life has
been dedicated so far yeah to uh yeah to
better foreigners so in terms of i mean i mean because i've been.
On put my hands about i've been on a couple of your training courses which are
brilliant by the way and this is going back a fair few years
i must admit and so yeah i always remember
(06:41):
taking away from your training courses a how
passionate you are about the subject matter and
also the obviously you're
teaching people about the survey techniques and you know mitigation and so
forth but it's also what i've taken away from from
the courses is your the how
(07:02):
you want to advance survey and
an understanding of the conservation part
of of as a newton reptile work
as well so that would be that's what i've taken away from the
course is that fair to say that it's not just about um you
know the day job it's also about um maybe a bit
more progressive yeah i mean it's it
(07:23):
becomes a protected species particularly well
particularly reptiles they have a poor deal when
it comes to what people do for them it's always
about you know the surveys is the magic
seven you do seven survey visits you assess
how many animals are on site potentially and that
gives you a number of how many days you can have to
(07:45):
trap out in order to carry out
your obligations towards them but there's no real it's one of the main sort.
Of criticisms of reptile mitigation or even amphibian mitigation is the lack
of follow-up and management which is required to make a successful mitigation
investigation strategy.
(08:05):
I mean, there are some cases where, say, you've got grass snakes in a garden
and you're going to redevelop the garden and you find one grass snake or a few
grass snakes in a compost bin or in the garden pond.
And then you basically, yeah, the grass snakes may be there for a certain part
of the year, but then they disappear. And that's what...
(08:26):
You know, you can do a lot of good for grass snakes by, for example,
creating more ponds in a woodland somewhere or creating egg laying sites for
them rather than focusing too much on the individuals.
Obviously, female snakes are important because they need to go and find egg
laying sites and breed and produce the next generation.
(08:47):
But it's also like a set sort of survey, assess impacts and then go immediately
to translocation. And that's possibly because reptiles are left possibly as
an afterthought. That's what it sort of feels like.
And it's sort of protected species are separated from the ecology or even biodiversity,
(09:09):
which is a bit of the rage at the moment.
But of course, it's a separate thing to doing those other things.
And adders particularly is another interest of mine. I have got a training course
coming up in Essex in April, which we're going to be launching the booking form for that quite soon.
(09:29):
And we're looking at a vulnerable species like adders, which are quite widespread,
but also quite vulnerable to land use changes and development.
And it's more thinking outside the box rather than just sticking rigidly to
the guidelines. Because, I mean, there is lots of flack that's thrown at consultants
that they're looking to make as much money as possible from a project.
(09:52):
And that's probably fed into by the, you know, that in Great Crested Newts,
you've got, you know, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.
It all sort of increases the cost of a project.
Whereas there are other options obviously that are open to us now but there's
also it's you know the the ecology of the animal needs to be thought about a
(10:15):
bit more and integrate it with biodiversity.
Okay well thank you for that so in terms of
looking at your career i
mean just focus on a great question newt for for the
time being so in terms of i mean
how did you you yeah how did
you obtain your survey license what was the process when you
(10:36):
went for your server license when you first obtained it and then
we could talk then a little bit about what's required now or
your understanding what's required now yeah thinking back
it would have been an english nature i think it would be english nature license
that's the right name isn't it before that was the ncc and it was an english
nature license and it was you have to get references back then and what happened
(11:01):
is that they were training courses to go on and you can get.
You can go on a training course and you get like one sort of reference or referee, perhaps.
There are also volunteer groups that you go out on surveys and then eventually
you build up your experience and then you apply for your own survey license.
(11:21):
And I think it was slightly different back then. The rules were slightly different.
I think egg searching wasn't licensable because it wasn't considered to be too.
Or was it the other way around? I think torching depends on the strength of your torch.
For a while, torching was an unlicensed method because they didn't feel that
(11:42):
it disturbed newts as much as what they do now with big, powerful torches.
So back then, that's what I could seem to remember. That's how I got my license
for all counties of England.
And now it's sort of evolved into class licenses.
So I've got a class two survey license,
which enables me to do aquatic funnel
(12:04):
trapping take by hand and so
that's using artificial cover objects aquatic funnel
traps and torching egg searching
and it's and did i say
yeah and pitfall trapping i can do limited pitfall trapping i've
recently registered our reserve for some
pitfall trapping this march where we're going
(12:24):
to be carrying out limited numbers of
pitfalls on drift fences around breeding ponds
for i think it's up to 20 days is i
can do that as many sites as i could get round i suppose but i need to register
that with natural england before i do that so it's slightly different now i
mean it's it's you see that often in linkedin that people report when they get
(12:48):
a new license and new licenses are still being.
Given to to people and they often have class one
licenses because i don't think there's much focus on pitfall
trapping but it's pitfall trapping
is interesting because you can find out where newts are dispersed to
and you can find whether certain habitats you've
(13:09):
created previously have been have been
adopted by the newts you know so i gather
it's a similar sort of process but it's definitely if
you have never had a license you go to do some training and
you need to have references from people that you've worked
with I think that's how it's how
it's done now I mean because I'm now on a class license I
(13:31):
renew my license every year and you
add you can add techniques so if
I wanted a drusby trap license I'll have to go and get
training to do that because it's a separate I
think it's a separate license now it's I think it's called a box trap
trap so i don't generally have jujube
license but i do use aquatic funnel traps which are not
(13:52):
just bottle traps but things that minnow traps
or shrimp traps and the other thing that i probably
need to look into is for disease screening
i would have to add swabbing taking
samples from a live amphibian and then
the other thing would be using endoscopes so if
you're using and detection dogs and you find a burrow.
(14:14):
Which is large enough to get an endoscope down i would
need to add that to my license potentially because
if you're using a light on the end of an endoscope down a tunnel and you find
a newt then you're technically disturbing it so there's all these sort of pitfalls
that you may need to add to a license to be able to be legal i suppose yeah
i mean i'm going back onto that training course i would attend it for yourself
(14:38):
i mean i say this This is quite a few years ago.
And I think at the time, I'm going to say I'm not a new person.
So in terms of, I mean, I've got limited knowledge and I'm certainly not,
you know, I think I've lapsed my license now.
But at the time, I remember you mentioning about these aquatic funnels and how,
(14:58):
you may use the word bonkers, that Natural England weren't recognising the use
of them. I don't know if that was true.
I can't remember what year that was, but did they recognize? Oh, I know.
Yeah. Cause it's, it's to do with the, to apply for a sort of a traditional,
protected species license.
(15:19):
So it was, was a European protected species licenses was deemed as a traditional license.
And what the issue is, is that you need to, what they didn't recognize was the
use of aquatic funnel traps, other than ones which are made from plastic bottles.
That's that was the issue the thing is
(15:39):
is if you're using density figures then
that has some application because if you're putting
out a number of traps in a pond and you're using one
which are more effective then you're going to have a slightly
different or a slightly higher
number of newts perhaps than you would with just bottle traps
but the problem with that is is that it's just based
(16:00):
on very wide margins so a medium
population is from 11 to 99 and you'll
go in some if you're catching nearer the 99
figure in bottle traps you it's trap density dependent so it's there were issues
with that but i think a lot of people got around it by just not mentioning that
they they were they were just aquatic funnel traps and the the method statement
(16:25):
said bottle bottle traps, I think, and they just didn't mention it.
I mean, the other thing is when they don't accept your license because you haven't
done bottle trapping, even though you've seen plenty in torch counting.
If you haven't done three out of the four methods, then they would knock you back on that as well.
And a good 15 years ago, I think there was a site that we became involved in
(16:49):
where the ecologist had done a survey.
And he's been doing surveys for donkey jeers. So he did a torch survey,
counted 50 newts in the population in two ponds.
So he felt that he didn't need to put bottle traps in.
And they said, no, you've got to repeat it. it so he
repeated it the next year and he got
(17:11):
the same figure from torch counting but a lot less in
the bottle traps that he had put out so he was
right but it's this sort of dogmatic approach
to the guidance i mean it is guidance it's
not the law but also it's also
the piecemeal way of applying the mitigation guidelines
so it's down in the mitigation guidelines in
(17:33):
2001 it was down to the professional judgment of the
consultant and just like if
you were using pitfall traps you have like a note
about how they are potentially dangerous for
not just newts but other animals as well so you have to be careful with using
pitfall traps you can't leave them for too long etc etc and the same guidance
(17:54):
is is put out for aquatic funnel traps and aquatic funnel traps made out of
plastic bottles can be really dangerous especially if they're left too long.
So you have to be really careful with that so the best way to.
To avoid that is to just use the information that you collect as torch counting
if it's clear water and you're counting all the newts there's no need to put
(18:18):
the bottle traps in because you're basically,
if you've got 100 newts in a pond and you're putting bottle traps
in then you're putting them at risk because you've got
20 newts in one bottle trap there's a
real risk of animals asphyxiating and passing
out and dying you know so it was
just those little debates that we've had along the way and so
(18:39):
and i think some people just you know
they they put in torch count data and they they explained why
they just use torch counting and i think that
natural england would accept that with with but they
would give you like a advice at the bottom of the the license
saying why you would you should use the
(18:59):
the trapping as well so it's yeah
it can be bonkers at times the way that things
are applied but also it's not strictly
sticking to the guidance as well which allows for
things to happen in terms of
i suppose progression over years then we know your experience to say you know
(19:20):
that that's uh you know you obviously you've got considerable experience over
is a 20 plus years it when it comes to putting together you know some sort of
a mitigation license application in.
Obviously there's various methods, various routes we can go down now.
I mean, before I think it was just like, I mean, again, my limited knowledge,
(19:42):
maybe just one traditional full license route.
Now we've got impact, we've got, you know, district licensing and so forth.
What, how do you perceive these changes over the past few years?
I mean, I can't remember what year it was, but I became a registered consultant
for a low impact class license, which effectively is covering the things that
(20:05):
you would not normally have licensed in the past.
So finding a new under a railway sleeper in a garden, for example,
was an example in our training that you would need a license because you're
moving a new town the way.
But in the past, you would say, well, that's not really having an impact on the newts.
Technically you are disturbing it because it's
in a place of shelter but then moving it to somewhere to safety
(20:28):
would would be fine and i think in a
development sort of sense it's you know the low impact on a
small number of newts on a small parcel of
terrestrial habitat outside you can't work on
ponds and then it's i think
it as they were bringing in district licensing and things
things like that the legal advice sort of
(20:48):
meant people were using non-licensed method statements so if they had situations
where there weren't any newts and you could put your development on there you
can avoid getting a license if you're not impacting newts for example if you're
not having to pick them up and move them then that's not a licensable,
action and I think also the advice about putting exclusion fencing up.
(21:12):
As long as the newts can migrate around a site and get to their breeding sites
and their hibernation sites,
then again, that's not breaching the legislation technically,
and I think it's this sort of being emboldened to provide the evidence to enable
you to assess the situation in terms of its impact on conservation status and
(21:33):
now we do have what are called district level licensing,
licensing which also includes organizational licenses
which are held by nature space on
behalf of various organizations and i do
know other companies have got organizational licenses as well
which covers a working area
basically so for district level licensing the name sort of comes from a district
(21:57):
or a county and generally speaking that's administered by natural england or
a local authority so an example would be dorset council they administer the
natural england license.
And then you've got the nature space license which
is effectively an organizational license that covers
(22:18):
the same sort of area and they they are
two different licenses at the workers
meeting they explained that natural england has a particular license which worked
on the district level and then you have nature space which is an organizational
licenses which serves the same function and has the same goal so to conserve
(22:40):
newts in a geographical area basically and you,
if you've got a development site you apply to join the license and what they
do is a desktop desktop study to assess the impact and then you pay a conservation
payment to join the license to offset your impact on the population.
And that's not mandatory. So none of the district licenses are mandatory.
(23:06):
If you have no impact on newts, then you don't need a license and that can also be an avenue.
If you've got a development which you have a small impact, say up to 12 months
development, the project timetable, and you're impacting some terrestrial habitat, you can,
register the site under a low impact class license for example
(23:27):
and that has happened as well in in places
where the district license would be prohibitive in
terms of cost and also if you've gone down
the planning process and you don't have things attached to the planning permission
relating to newts you have to go back to the council and reopen that to in order
(23:48):
for district licenses to work
so the low impact class license and a traditional license is often post.
Plan of mission, basically. So in terms of when you're advising your clients,
so we're putting your consultancy hat on.
So advising your clients, you come across a piece of land and let's say it's
(24:11):
in Dorset, just for the time being.
I mean, how do you navigate, how do you advise your clients in terms of which
license route to go down?
And I'm using, I'm being, you know, this is a very simplistic point of view,
as in, imagine I have got, I know nothing about, and this is quite true,
(24:34):
know very little or nothing about licensing at all.
I'm your client. How would you advise me? You've come across a piece of land.
You found newts on it. Tell me about what you found and what we're going to
be doing in terms of licensing.
Yeah, it depends on, I think Dorset is natural England.
So they have risk maps. So the likelihood of finding newts in a certain area,
(24:58):
which is modelled on survey information and environmental DNA surveys of ponds,
which they did over, I think it was 2017,
2018, 2019 on various counties.
And it's modelled and then you have these areas which are risk maps.
So if you haven't got any survey information on
a site if you've got ponds within
(25:20):
250 meters of the red line boundary for example
i mean a normal course of events would be that you would go and survey them
for a plan application under the district license it has if you just just go
straight it depends on what what the development is how big it is how many ponds
you've got for For example,
(25:40):
say if someone wants to do, say a golf course, which they've got a sizable number
of ponds on it with lots of newts in them, that we know from historic,
records, say, you would advise to go and see, you devise your plan application to.
Basically join the district license and you can get the conservation payment.
(26:05):
And that's where it gets a bit interesting because it can be a substantial amount
of money before planning.
And sometimes that's not cost effective. So it's reviewing what information you have.
I mean, there are situations where people have done reptile surveys.
(26:26):
So you still have to do reptile surveys. You can join the district license. you
still have to do other ecology so dormice and
water voles or anything else has to happen
as well so an example would
be for reptile surveys you put out tins and felts and
things like that and then you find newts under those felts
and tins but you've got no ponds on site but you do
(26:47):
know there's great christian newts there now in
that situation you can you can probably still still rely on
the risk maps under natural england's license
as soon as you have newts in ponds the
risk maps are taken away and then it's
i think for every pond that you've got newts in it's a
four times multiplier for each pond conservation payment i
(27:10):
mean that's what they're called so it you know it makes
sense not to carry out the surveys for the
purposes of the ecological surveys you can assess them for
you know their suitability and it's so
you would you in some cases you would go straight to try and join
the district license and see it's down
to the client ultimately and they can do it themselves they don't really need
(27:34):
to do it with an ecologist that's the other thing that district licensing it
seems to push out new to ecologists albeit they would be advising you know ecologists
will be advising their clients and then they apply and then they they have the conservation payment.
But if I have had cases where the conservation payment is just not affordable, then we look at.
(27:57):
How we would do the development if we're before planning we
can apply the mitigation hierarchy for example
avoiding the impacts in the first instance can we
move stuff around to retain important habitats
it's all the similar sort of thing in bng is
following the mitigation hierarchy which is just as important in
great chris newts as well and then
(28:19):
it's hopefully you would have a biodiversity action
plan you know like a management plan and you would
look to maximize the opportunities for newts in
the area as well so it's it's always
the mantra that i've always heard in the early
noughties was that we all know how to look after
newts and it's to build ponds and create woodlands
(28:39):
and that's the main thing that we want to do and so if we
do that on site or if we do it by providing money to
a off-site provider that's that's
what's good for newts is plenty of ponds and plenty of
terrestrial habitat in the countryside so that's
how i would look at things and how i'd advise them it's
really down to a specific case-by-case basis really okay and in in terms of
(29:04):
your i mean i'm just asking you know in terms of your knowledge and experience
of you know elsewhere so i mean do you think that there may be there's an i
don't know how to phrase this you know an over-reliance,
an over-reliance on using district licenses or do they actually serve a purpose?
(29:25):
In some cases, yes, they would serve a purpose where you can't retain habitat
on site and stuff and you have to get a license to move newts out of the way.
You still have an obligation to newts on site, so you need a license to be able to move them.
So in some cases, joining a district license would be the possibly the quickest
(29:47):
way to get that license and you would take steps to avoid being reckless you
know damaging newts and damaging their habitats and stuff like that,
it's it's they do serve a
purpose in certain cases but then the golf
course example we have 27 ponds on the golf course and the conservation payment
is quite hefty and you have to work with natural England or nature space to
(30:14):
provide them with enough information to reduce that payment to an acceptable level.
Even when you're retaining some of the habitats which are important for them,
Natural England will consider them lost even if they're being retained. And it's.
Do drop the conservation payment in order to facilitate the development.
(30:37):
And in that way, you are facilitating keeping important habitats for newts,
which they will continue to use them even with a development around the sites.
We've got numerous sites where, I think the oldest mitigation site I know of was in 1987,
and they were building a car park in the
the back of a civic offices and they found
(30:58):
newts and they were going to fill the pond in but the
mitigation back then was to keep the ponds and they
put in tunnels through quite old walls and
things to residential areas and i surveyed that site in 2021 and it was still
a medium population in that pond because they were connected to the surrounding
(31:20):
residential areas so we know that newts will survive in suburban and urban areas for quite some time.
They're long-lived animals, so their generations will go on and on and on,
as long as they've got somewhere to breed and somewhere to shelter over winter and things.
Retaining stuff is important in terms of biodiversity and newt conservation.
(31:42):
As well as creating new habitats for them to colonise.
So it's just these little quirks that
you know means that the costs really mount up if
you've got too much of something already like great
christian needs it's i'm losing
my train of thought now i'm just
looking back and say i mean i say you know when i used to
(32:05):
do new work new new survey work you
know he was that standard you know going out and you
know the bottle traps the putting out the you know
they're doing the torching the egg searches you know
and that was pretty much it really but now we
have i mean there seems to be more novel techniques coming in
now so we got you mentioned before about using
(32:26):
detection dogs and e-dna so i
think you know how is this and you know obviously more
tools how has this affected what you
do as a conservationist consultants and also
you know what it means for great gretting new
conservation yeah i think it's the
technology of environmental dna in ponds is being
(32:48):
used to monitor ponds in a much much wider scale i know that to set up the district
licenses they had to survey hundreds and well i think it's thousands of ponds
and they used like one visit to go and sample a pond to find out if present
present, newts are present or not,
and they link that back to habitat suitability assessments on ponds.
(33:12):
And that was fed into the model and it churns out this sort of where newts are in the landscape.
Now models, it's helpful because you can do so many ponds over a very large area.
But the thing is, it's limited in terms of what it can tell you.
It can only tell you if the newt DNA is present within the pond.
(33:34):
The technology isn't set up to tell you how many newts are in there, for example.
There is a weak correlation to the score that you get from the DNA results.
So there's a score from 1 to 12 out of 12, which is the higher number,
sort of weakly correlates with higher numbers of newts in the ponds.
(33:56):
So what has actually happened in the survey field is that projects which have
got hundreds and hundreds of ponds, they triage the ponds like we used to,
with distance, barriers,
whether they're polluted, they've got fish, all those sort of things we used to do before.
And then quite a lot of the countryside ponds are in
(34:18):
a real dire state you know some of them really really rubbish so
the last thing you want to do is as a company is
to go back there four times so this technology enables
you to go there small window get a negative result and then you don't have to
go back to that pond and it's it's a tool to discount ponds from further survey
work which in a lot of cases is fine because the ponds are in such a horrible
(34:43):
state you know they're silted up they're overgrown own.
I remember seeing in a pond that I visited for 2013, I think it was for natural
England and the new enhancement project.
And it was a tire dump. It was full of tires. The farmer was just dumping tires in a big pond.
And it's like, you know, I wasn't even going to dip my net in to see if it had any water quality.
(35:07):
It probably would dissolve the net, you know? So
it was an eye opener a lot of the ponds in
the countryside are in a real terrible state and
for newts the best thing to do
is to restore those ponds or to build new ponds and lots
of them so the technology is is
good but there are repercussions and
(35:27):
i think people are just basically doing dna surveys
for newt surveys that's it they just go out and do
dna surveys and then perhaps
they're joining district street licenses and in some cases
people perhaps don't even see what a newt don't even
actually physically see a newt in their day-to-day work
perhaps which is slightly worrying because it's it's
(35:49):
it's always good to have newts in the hand and show people and even your clients
you know often they've said i've never seen a newt so if you've got a bucket
full of them and show them it gives a tangible thing but we're going to lose
that as we move more towards strategic or or, you know, modelled stuff elsewhere.
You know, if you charge a client for a service, they need to know what they're being charged for.
(36:14):
But, you know, I'm sure some clients are happy to just solve the problem of
needs by paying money somewhere else and then they don't have to worry about it.
But it's as me as a new conservationist, it's, you know, my work will change
undoubtedly in the future.
I just need to fit myself into the system where I can do the most good, really.
(36:37):
Pond creation, for example, it's really, really good. You can,
you know, create ponds for the district license in your area.
If you've got land and people are, you know, people are creating lots of ponds.
I mean, natural England, particularly are creating thousands of ponds over the
last five years, which is probably never been attempted before in this country.
(36:57):
So there are some really good aspects to it as well.
And, and the role of detection dogs as well now then. So, you know,
that's come along and it's really come a thing in the last, I want to say,
like last five years or maybe a little bit more.
Yeah, yeah, I think so. It was interesting when district licensing came in first.
(37:19):
I think a lot of people were told, don't bother with detection dogs for newts.
And I'm pretty certain that's what people advise some people.
But I think they have come into their own, really.
I mean, it's, they're so much more efficient. I mean, a terrestrial survey would
take at least 60 days, 30 to 60 days with lots of plastic fencing and pitfall traps.
(37:43):
And you basically, you know, all over the site, you've got all these fences and stuff.
It would just take a considerable amount of time to determine whether newts are on a site.
You can do physical surveys, you know, go out at night with a torch, look under things.
But you can you can find newts presence
of newts in a terrestrial habitat just in
a morning you know they they do cover a lot of land and
(38:06):
they are so much more you know so much more sensitive to finding those newts
were properly trained and validated dogs and it's it's just it's a bit of a
game changer really in terms of assessing terrestrial habitats and you can avoid those those impacts,
that's the key thing, is making sure that you avoid impacts on the,
(38:30):
so therefore you don't have to go down licensing in quite a lot of cases really.
And also when you're implementing a license, you need to make sure you're not
killing or injury killing or injuring animals when you're removing a fence,
for example, but that may not happen so much in the future, a lot less fencing
going in a lot less plastic, which I think is a good thing.
(38:54):
As well. No, no. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, it seems to be like a
really, well, increasing in popularity, the technique, as I say.
And I say we've covered a little bit about detection dogs on a previous podcast.
In terms of, I just want to bring our attention to the natural England policies.
(39:15):
And I don't know, but have you, you know, have you used natural England policies
in the past? And if you have, how have you used them?
And is it just a tool in the art, you know, to use?
Or is it something that, you know, we should only use occasionally?
I think it's, I think, yeah, when they came in, it was to try and reduce,
(39:38):
you know, try and reduce a dogmatic approach to licensing.
You know, I think delays to projects because you haven't got the survey information.
Information, maybe it was two years old, or you've just got torch counting on
a pond, for example, but normally you would be told to go back and do the full set of surveys.
(40:00):
Whereas what you would do is that you would take that information and the habitat
information, and you would make a professional judgment.
And then you apply the, I think it's EPS policy four, assessing the impacts
and you assess assess the worst-case scenario and putting mitigation into your application.
I think the big thing was things like quarries, where trapping out quarries
(40:25):
with newt fencing is quite dangerous.
And I think there was a project by, I'm trying to remember his name now,
he's from Atkins Realist, and it's gone out of my head. Oh, no, that's terrible.
It might come back to me. We'll come back to that.
But anyway, there was a quarry and for some significant time they were doing
(40:49):
mitigation where they weren't trapping out newts because the quarry was moving
around and digging up new areas.
And what they found was that the newts, Luke Lissett, Luke Gorman from Atkins Realist.
Really? I think that's the new name for Atkins. and that's
where that policy policy free came from was a lot
(41:10):
of his work with the quarry project where
he basically all he was
doing was you know digging new ponds basically with
the quarrying works so as they moved into a new area they left lots of water
bodies and lots of you know diverse structurally diverse habitats and with quarries
(41:31):
in general if if you've got a large quarry and And you would have areas which
haven't been worked for 40-odd years,
you know, got scrub on them and water bodies and things like that.
And the combination of the two meant that newts are fine. They,
you know, they really do well in those sort of areas.
But what was happening was...
(41:51):
People were going in with fencing down sheer faces of quarries and stuff and
trying to trap out newts from those areas.
And quite often you would find that you wouldn't be catching many newts.
So what they applied was that it became the policy to free, I think it was.
Use of temporary habitats, I think that one is.
(42:12):
Yeah, so you allow newts to colonize habitats, which are going to be developed in the future.
And it can be really successful. forward i
mean that's i mean i i don't think i've applied it myself recently because i
think it also you know you have to go to a slightly different part of the licensing
process in order to you know because there are charges for different types of
(42:37):
licenses and it makes it more complicated so.
But i would apply it again if it was available if if
i had a situation where we couldn't join in the district license say there
wasn't one and we had a client that had a certain
project that we could create lots of new
habitat then you would apply those principles those
policies i think you're allowed to apply two on
(43:00):
on a mitigation strategy right but
it's all about maximizing the benefit for needs you know you just
need lots of ponds lots of terrestrial habitat and then
you need the follow-up management and that's the thing that
district licenses are doing outside of the
red line boundary is that they're doing the creating the
ponds and then they're you know the follow-up surveys come through
(43:23):
the funding come from development so in
a sense it's it's large-scale mitigation which i
think a lot of lot of the time you can't really do with
a you know like a single site because generally speaking
you don't sort of work outside your area unless
you can compulsory purchase land next door for example
that's part of the process and i have i
(43:45):
have worked on projects where that that was able to
be implemented and it's just
the follow-up the follow-up is really important the monitoring
and the the follow-up management is really really
important so that's one of the i mean because
i think mitigation licenses they sort of last for five
years so five years worth of monitoring but that's
(44:05):
it it sort of stops but you need
to go on for a lot longer in order to to maintain.
New populations and do you think do you think that's as
you say that's one of my questions we're coming
to the end of our time today but is that
one of the sort of limitations of licences per se is that the number of is monitoring
(44:28):
effective in terms of the licensing requirements or as you may be alluding to
that longer periods may be more beneficial Yeah it's.
Definitely in order to get that,
uplifting status you do need to
manage ponds on a rotational basis and
(44:50):
really just creating new ponds in an area but then within
a license i think the monitoring sort
of stops about five years but then the
management continues because if you've got a management plan that goes
into the license but there's no further monitoring and
that is that is one of the main sort of
criticisms of you know site-based mitigation
(45:13):
work is that I mean largely the narrative
is it doesn't work for new sits it's better to be
off-site and where you can create lots of ponds etc
etc and it's and you
know you just build the ponds and newts will come it's what the general mantra
is but I think even where we've got a site in Essex where we've got thousands
(45:35):
of newts and we've created new ponds It has taken some time for them to colonize
and actually use them because when you do a new mitigation scheme,
you plant up ponds with broadleaf aquatic plants.
It's all making it as suitable a pond for newts to breed in as quickly as possible.
(45:55):
You don't do that with district licenses. You build a pond. It's completely
bare and it's all natural colonization.
The newts will find them but it's
just not giving them the right sort of environment and
it's what we've been doing for you know new ecologists
been doing as a matter of course you take some of the water mint for example
(46:16):
from the pond that's going to be destroyed and you put it in the new pond and
you establish it that way i mean the neverden site is the nature site that i've
managed and And what we found out was an ecologist at work for us,
he spotted plants in the ponds that we were destroying and he felt that they're
really important and he moved them over as well.
(46:38):
And we've managed to increase the number of ponds from the two that we lost. We now have six.
I think it's a fine leaf water drop work and it's just one of these things to
establish a pond quickly, you do need to plant it up. up.
But I think the criteria for the district license ponds, it's 150 square metres minimum.
(47:02):
And there's no planting up. So it's something that you have to get used to.
As a new to ecologist, you do like to move stuff over. I'm rambling.
I mean, there are flaws in every action, every scheme that you join.
There are little quirks and things that you have to deal with.
And also when you sign up to any of the licenses, if they haven't provided the
(47:26):
habitat, then you have to wait for that to be provided before you start your development.
So it's, it's not always plain sailing.
And I think what I would do in the future is probably have a hybrid sort of
license where you have delivery on a development site, as well as the remnant
impacts delivered elsewhere.
(47:47):
So, because I think there are some sites where you've got significant amounts
of public open space where you can put ponds in,
or you've got existing ponds and they can be part of the delivery of the strategic
license in the area as well.
But that's not how it was how it's been how it
was it was made basically i think with
(48:09):
the nature space organizational district license
there is a bit of you know
you can you can put in your survey information and your mitigation
and that would have an impact on on perhaps
the conservation payments whereas natural england they're
quite rigid that anything inside the red line boundary is
lost and that's what you have to mitigate for but i
(48:32):
think i have had cases where they've re-evaluated the
situation because ponds are being kept and one
example that we had was a old moat which was
being restored as part of a farm conversion and
they had taken it that it was being lost but of course it's an ancient scheduled
ancient monument so it was never never going to be lost so they reduced the
(48:55):
conservation payment so there is this sort of negotiation with the natural england
teams and the nature space teams to get you know um the best outcome for all involved.
Okay, well, John, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I mean,
in terms of, I say, sort of final question, you mentioned about there was something
coming up in April, you say, that you maybe want to remind us about?
(49:19):
Yes. It's on a site with lots of great question news, but it's actually to do
with Adder Ecology Survey and Mitigation.
And it's in our April 16th is the first workshop,
and we're basing that at the Langdon Hills Golf and Country Club,
which is a site with plenty
(49:39):
of ponds on it but also a number of adders as
well and we're going to be going through adder mitigation surveys
and techniques in april time
and it's going to be the booking form is going to
be released in well by next week so people
can join up and we would hope to have
a series of workshops because i'm sure people will be
(50:00):
signing up and we'll fill up up quite quickly so rightio
okay well i think this podcast will probably go
out in early march so you hopefully
get some from there but other than that i mean in terms of i mean what advice
would you give i mean look at someone at the very start of their career they
(50:21):
want to get into maybe you know you know neutral reptile conservation looking
for maybe advancing their skills and knowledge,
how would you advise someone in their early career as an ecologist in terms
of developing their skills and knowledge?
Ah, yeah. I would say definitely try and keep up with the old sort of field
(50:45):
techniques as well as the new technologies.
I think have a base, you know, you can volunteer for things at the amphibian
reptile groups or RUK or Amphibian Reptile Conservation.
Particularly myself, I'm a recorder of the Hampshire Isle of Wight Amphibian Reptile Group,
and we have surveys ongoing at ponds for amphibians, and we've had a great year
(51:12):
in Hampshire for frogs and toads and things,
but now we're going into the newt season, And then I would recommend you sort
of look up your local R group and go out and get some field experience.
And I think hopefully in the future, we'll be looking at disease testing in
the field as well with voluntary groups, which would be useful.
(51:34):
And yeah, just keep your hand in with, you know, the field techniques,
looking at ponds with torches, habitat suitability indexes and stuff like that.
It's I think that sort of is dying out a little bit it's going to,
eDNA and joining district licences so I would recommend that people keep up
with their field skills really Wonderful Yeah I couldn't agree more Yeah exactly
(51:58):
so we still need to know the basics well they're not even basics you know they're vital really Yeah,
it's so we keep that alive counting newts in ponds is still useful,
and it just you know I think we created a a population where we had 50 newts
in the peak count and then we've got a population of over 225 newts in 2018.
(52:22):
That was, I think, eight years.
So to see that many newts is remarkable and it's good to have that population.
You know, seeing what the newts look like and seeing their behaviour.
And also looking for, you'll find perhaps new things that people have never seen before.
(52:43):
I mean, I remember seeing BBC Wild Isles or something like that,
where horse leeches were engulfing common toadlets from ponds.
Or Springwatch, where adders were raiding birds' nests and things like that.
If you're not out there, you won't see this behavior that's never been seen before.
(53:03):
So it's definitely, I think other taxa groups are having the same issues,
really, that, you know, people are just not looking for invertebrates or,
you know, flowers and plants and stuff like that.
So it's always good to get out in nature, which is what we want people to be able to do, don't we?
That's it. Yeah. Not totally rely on, say, technology, AI, you know.
(53:26):
You know, there's nothing more enjoyable, I think, than actually,
you know, as you rightly say, you know, going out there and seeing the animal
or animals and plants of what, you know, we're sort of taking for granted,
you know, and what we're trying to conserve.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you've got to get close to nature.
(53:46):
Because one last thing is, I was speaking to a colleague recently and they mentioned
constantly about how the youth of today, the generations today are disconnected with nature.
And I think there are people that are dedicated conservationists or ecologists.
And I think these modern technologies, you're going to have a slight disconnect
(54:08):
with aquatic wildlife, for example, reduced just to a test tube.
I think that's really good, but also there's the ramifications of that,
of not knowing what things look like, for example, and having that connection is important.
I think everyone can agree that you need to keep connected with nature in order to value it.
(54:30):
So hopefully consultants will continue to do that into the future.
Indeed, indeed. Well, John, thank you so much for coming on to the Ecology Academy
podcast. Cheers. Thank you.
If you enjoy our show and want to help, then please click on the subscribe button
and rate us on your favourite podcast player, as that's how you can inspire
(54:53):
ecologists in the making,
help retain great talent and provide insights of our industry to a much wider
audience of why ecology really does matter. Thank you.
And remember, learning is a lifelong endeavour, so stay curious,
be adventurous and build bridges.
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