Frogs newts and grass snakes

[Andy Jones]

Hi

I have a garden pond which in past years has been healthy but has suffered a little recently as a result of attempts to rid myself of blanket weed. I am currently replacing some of the plants which suffered.

I have always had a healthy population of amphibians including a large population of newts which last year and this year have wiped out my population of recently hatched tadpoles.

In the past grass snakes have come and gone but this year seem to have eaten most of the larger newts one by one leaving me with only very small ones.

Is this nature in the 'raw' or can I take any steps to balance things out a little?

[King Edward]

What did you do to control the algae? If you used any kind of chemical treatment, could that have affected the newts?

I think the newts will recover from the depredations of grass snakes, if the latter are indeed to blame. In the meantime, hopefully your frogs will have more breeding success now that there are fewer newts. I wouldn't try anything to alter the numbers of frogs/newts/snakes, other than to maintain the pond and its surroundings in a healthy condition - many people would be pleased to have so many grass snakes. They don't generally have that large an appetite, and having eaten all your newts they may well move on anyway.

[GCN lova]

just make sure youve plenty of shallow lush planted areas where newts and tadpoles can hide from predators. grass snakes can be blamed but also the removal of blanketweed may have affected the newts because i know that newt larvae love these jungles of algae. i leave my blanketweed alone mostly so that it only covers half of the shallows.

[Andy Jones]

Hi Thanks for the replies.

I was using a supposedly harmless blanket weed killer which quite simply couldn't cope with the problem so tried another type - again supposedly harmless - which completely killed all the blanket weed and the film of weed on the pond sides. The newts didn't seem affected but I suspect that the loss of a substantial part of the water plant content (due in part to my over zealousness) might be the problem by removing protective cover. Perhaps the newts moved on to new territories through lack of 'newt food'. I will rectify the situation and see how it goes.

I had been proud of my grass snakes until they gave my newts such a hard time! I haven't seen them recently so you might be right King Edward.

Many thanks for the kind replies.