Slow Worms In My Garden

[johnlovie]

I have a number of slow worms in my VERY over grown garden. My Housing Association Landlord and my neighbour are not too happy about it,the state of the garden,not the slow worms. Does the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 contain anything that would limit or prevent any clearing up of my garden? To be honest I am too lazy to do the garden and I am looking for some way to tie up my landlord and neighbour in some sort of legal minefield. My kids and their friends love the slow worms and I do care about what happens to them. My major worry is my landlord turning up one day with a team of gardeners and a strimmer! What can I do?

[Lindsay-c]

Yes slow worms are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside act. This means it is illegal to kill or hurt slow worms

There should be some information on the RSPB website which should help

[Lindsay-c]

"Slow-worms are protected in the UK under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981). This makes it illegal to kill, injure, sell or trade wild slow-worms." << quote from RSPB website

It would be a shame if they did tidy up as well because it sounds like the ideal habitat for them there - best inform your landlord

[nightshade]

Don't get your hopes up, you may still have to tidy your garden, Slow Worms
held up a footpath development for a short time only. Sandvik garden tools are very good

[Matt Smith]

Animals in gardens are a bit of a grey area, things get done in gardens that wouldn't be "allowed" elesewhere because there is often no overview or enforcement.

Species such as Slow-worms are partially protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act and subsequent legislation and "deliberate" killing of the species is not allowed. The key word here is "deliberate", this is the wording that is used to ensure developers remove species like Slow-worms from sites before site clearance; if the species is known to be on site prior to work commencing then any injuries or deaths to the animals are assumed to be "deliberate".

Technically the same rules apply to private individuals, but the problem here is one of enforcement. "Normal" gardening activities such as mowing, weeding or landscaping do not normally require any sort of outside permissions (eg from the local council) so there is no oversight or any way of enforcing the regulations.

If landscaping work / garden work is being carried out by a commercial organisation then they should be aware of the regulations regarding Slow-worms etc. Sadly most are not, most jobs of this nature are carried out by "a man with a van, plus digger", who either has know knowledge or no interest in wildlife. Little known regulations tend to get ignored as they get in the way of getting the job done, I have known contractors happily pump out ponds containing Great Crested Newts and tell me later, "oh yes - there were 30 or 40 in the pond".

Proving an offence has been commited is also very difficult, the defence that the killing or injuring of an animal was the "unintentional" result of an lawful activity is often used and is one of those legal grey areas.

So - the basic answer is - "don't expect Slow-worms to stop your landlord tidying up the garden". Best bet might be to negotiate with him to leave a few wild bits for the Slow-worms and a few tidier bits for him.

[faz]

Dont be to LAZY sort the garden out yourself protect the Slow Worms if you are that botherd if you are disabled or over weight then you can ask for help from your local council/local wildlife group

[Richard Baber]

I'd be tempted to leave as much of it alone as you can, if you can. My neighbour had a wonderfully overgrown back garden until a couple of years ago, when he inexplicably cleared it completely. (We don't talk much.) All for no reason, as far as I can tell, as he never uses it. Until then there was at least one hedgehog nesting there and we had regular visits from slow-worms. I haven't seen one since, despite doing my best to offer similar habitat myself in my somewhat tiny back garden.

Richard

[JaySteel]

We used to get Viviparous Lizards regularly on the grass verges of my car park at work. The grass became quite overgrown and my manager said that he was going to contact the landlord to get the contractors in with their strimmers. I spoke to the Environment Agency who were working on a site next to my office and recording Viviparous Lizards. They assured me that nothing could be done to prevent this from happening and unless I could catch them 'deliberately' strimming the lizards then no crime could be proved.
He told me that the best course of action in my case was to speak to the contractors, inform them of the presence of lizards in the grass and politely ask them not to cut the grass shorter than 6-8 inches.
So I don't hold out much hope for you keeping your landlord away just because of the presence of slow worms I'm afraid.

Best regards,
Jason

[King Edward]

Is there any way you could agree a plan with your landlord/neighbour to 'tidy' the garden such that it doesn't look so bad, but retains much of its value for Slow-worms? If they insist on it all being short lawn mown neatly with stripes then there might not be much room for compromise, but perhaps they'd accept a certain amount of managed untidiness.

[Shawit]

I have a good population in my garden. The fact is to avoid killing them I have to garden very carefully.
This includes keeping the mowed area of grass very short to help keep them off it and still raking this area to flush any small ones out first. And yet I've still killed 3 small ones with the mower in the last year. When next doors grass has been left too get to long I cut it with large wallpaper scissors - a mower would cause carnage - I always find 20+ small frogs hiding in it.
Before cutting any hedge I would also rake it vigorously - last year I killed a large pregnant female that was sunning itself 5 foot off the ground.
I also have to avoid stepping on the loose slabs, timbers and old roofing tiles I've put down for them that they do go under.
My garden doesn't look a mess but it doesn't look formal! I wouldn't let anyone do any work in my garden - I take the utmost care and still kill slowworms, frogs and newts accidentally.

If I were you I would definitely do the work.