Newt Tadpoles

[wiganer516]

I am after some advice on newt tadpoles!! We've got some newt tadpoles and we're currently fighting a major developer who wishes to build industrial units over working farm land, which includes 2 ponds.

The 1st pond we dipped showed very little signs of life, the 2nd pond we dipped was a different story. We carried out 2 pond dipping surveys with 2 local experts. the 2nd pond as soon as we put the tray in the water to use for our dippings came out teaming with tadpoles and mayfly and damsel fly lava.

Amongst the tadpole was 1 very very large tadpole a good 6-8 times bigger than the other several hundred in the tray. The tadpole just had the signs of back legs forming there were no visible spots on the tadpol although it had a strong hint of ref/pink on its belly and sides. both experts immediately said it was a palmate newt tadpole does any1 have any photo evidence of what these look like we have some grainy photos which were not taken with a macro lens. if we can prove that this was indeed a newt then it will stand us in good stead to halt development of farm land and green belt area.

Many thanks

Julian

[nightshade]

Cannot help directly but these people are the bees-knees
Froglife - conserving native frogs, toads, newts, lizards, snakes

[The Woodman]

Julian
The presence of a European Protected Species is not a valid reason stop development of a site.
I would be fairley confident that an ecological consultant will be employed by the developer and full EPS (bats, newts, crayfish etc) surveys required by the relevant planning department.
Contact your Natural England office in Wigan and register your amphibian records asap. Lancashire Wildlife Trust will help as well. Good luck.

[bardofely]

Newt tadpoles are very different to frog and toad tadpoles because for a start they have feathery gills at the side of their heads and they develop the front legs first. They are also smaller.

There's a photo and description here:
pnewt

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

Julian
The presence of a European Protected Species is not a valid reason stop development of a site.
I would be fairley confident that an ecological consultant will be employed by the developer and full EPS (bats, newts, crayfish etc) surveys required by the relevant planning department.
Contact your Natural England office in Wigan and register your amphibian records asap. Lancashire Wildlife Trust will help as well. Good luck.

They should do this but a very similar thing happened to somebody I know on land near their house and they started work without them carying out a proper valid environmental audit and there were great crested newts present. Legal action was taken.

[bardofely]

Originally Posted by honeybee

They should do this but a very similar thing happened to somebody I know on land near their house and they started work without them carying out a proper valid environmental audit and there were great crested newts present. Legal action was taken.

These road-builders, businesses and development companies don't care about violating laws about protected species - I remember back in 2003 and 2004 the road being made despite opposition, through ancient forest in Blackwood where dormice and several species of bats had been found and this was ignored by the forces of destruction who carried on cutting down and bulldozing to make their road. Even Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers and his family's celebrity status couldn't stop it although it was tried!