Decades of conservation destroyed in days. By...

[JonathanD]

That is upsetting. I was there rescuing reps from that site last year.

 

[Elines]

I clicked on this thread in the hope of getting some good news, but seems not ........

 

[JonathanD]

I clicked on this thread in the hope of getting some good news, but seems not ........

Good news-ish. Well mostly bad actually.

Futher destruction has been halted on that area. Good news. Bad news is, I have not found a single live specimen (adder: Vipera berus) in the immediate or surrounding area. Further bad news, clearance has begun on other areas now, despite it being mating season and those survivors needing another area to colonise and find cover. If they had cleared the area they are clearing now, it wouldn't have impacted on the adders. By clearing the original area and then moving to do more work nearby, they have caused so many problems, I can't even begin to think how many pages a report will take. Damage done now though. Inadvertently maybe. But the entire population of adders in an area that was renowned for being a stronghold for the species, will never recover from this. Sure, in a couple of years the whole area will be much better environment as a whole for them, and easily maintained from then on with little impact. But they will no longer be there in significant numbers to re-populate it. It would have been touch and go before this as to whether the population was genetically sustainable. Or even sustainable long term, given the sparse and isolated areas they gather in. Now numbers and genetic diversity are virtually nil.

 

[bushwacker bob]

Darwin had a theory about this.
How are the Stourton Buzzards?

 

[JonathanD]

Circling.

 

[Miniwhisk]

Adders are a protected species I thought. Is this true? If so, the law has been broken here. Terribly sad.

 

[Elines]

Good news-ish. Well mostly bad actually.

Futher destruction has been halted on that area. Good news. Bad news is, I have not found a single live specimen (adder: Vipera berus) in the immediate or surrounding area. Further bad news, clearance has begun on other areas now, despite it being mating season and those survivors needing another area to colonise and find cover. If they had cleared the area they are clearing now, it wouldn't have impacted on the adders. By clearing the original area and then moving to do more work nearby, they have caused so many problems, I can't even begin to think how many pages a report will take. Damage done now though. Inadvertently maybe. But the entire population of adders in an area that was renowned for being a stronghold for the species, will never recover from this. Sure, in a couple of years the whole area will be much better environment as a whole for them, and easily maintained from then on with little impact. But they will no longer be there in significant numbers to re-populate it. It would have been touch and go before this as to whether the population was genetically sustainable. Or even sustainable long term, given the sparse and isolated areas they gather in. Now numbers and genetic diversity are virtually nil.

Thanks for the update

 

[mr dazzler]

I am not normally over bothered about land use being changed, it has happened for millenia and I expect will continue to happen, for better or worse as long as there is an earth..... But reading about this case, it annoys me to think I had to pay jobsworths to produce so called eco surveys when I wanted permnission for my house extension. And most of the parish churches in East anglia are infested with bats and their droppings and no one can do anything about it (I wonder how long the local authority, or the NT people would tolerate bat s##t in their buildings)..... How did the NT get away with it? I wonder what their agenda really is, and how "well" connected they are.

 

[hedgerowpete]

i would have thought you would have had enough of senclessly banging your head against a brick wall by now, it does absolutly no good going up against a quango government group, your wrong there right and you lose, me personaly i would by a book on butterflys as its the only thing thats going to live there

 

[EmmaD]

I went up there last week and expected this devastation as Jon is not one to exaggerate. But it was utterly shocking. Even I can find adders here. But not anymore and never again.

Jon has been recording individuals here for 27 years when he was a kid and long before becoming a zoologist. There were still adders here that were there then. They are gone.

 

[Welshwizard]

All the contacts I have at hand will be sent a thorough report with photographic evidence backed up with years of study. It's a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted. But as I've told Robbi, there are individual adders I've seen here since I was 15 (25 years ago now) and it was a major stronghold for the species. They will all be dead now. It's like returning home and finding your house burned down. The damage is irreversable, the adders can't be brought back or replaced. And even if you could, they have nowhere now to hibernate as all the smaller surrounding sites have had the same thing happen over the last few years as part of the 'heathland restoration project'. This was the last one. Adders from the area gather together in communal hibernacula, the majority of the surviving population would have been under that lot. Only a few late comers having to go to ground before they made it to this site last November would have survived, and those few individuals will never be able to re-populate the area. Genetic diversity will be zero, and adders breed very slowly.

Its appalling ,we had a similar thing here in Brecon Beacons park a few years back when water authority gained permission to run a new pipeline through the parkland where I have lived ,walked with my children for the past 28 years , we knew there were sloworms,lizzards grass snakes and adders ,newts smooth mainly but some crested in small populations,frog and toad breeding areas,
when we found out I rang the National park office and told them ,they replied they had no information to support any of this so i offered to take them to several of the locations of the amphibians breeding areas and show them and they sent an officer which i met up with and took them ,they sent one letter back saying that they would monitor the pipelaying and ask that the water board to put fencing up and reseed the area after the work , i took photos before and after but as they had caused diversion of the natural water way it took a long time for most of the breeding areas to be reused ,and i was stupid enough to believe that being in a Nat. Park the Flora and Fauna were protected !