Adder article

[aeshna5]

For those here that don't see BBC Wildlife mag, there's an excellent 6 pages on Adders in the current (March) issue by Tony Phelps who studied these fabulous reptiles for 35 years in Dorset.As well as interesting info there are as expected with this mag some superb photos.

Tony's just moved to South Africa to study snakes, but some of "his" Adders in his study area are amongst the oldest known wild snakes in the world, with a fair number over 25 years old + 10 were over 30.

One of his concerns has been some of the well intentioned conservation work on heathland restoration, where heavy machinery has destroyed dozens of hibernation sites by contractors with little knowledge of reptiles.

Well worth a read!

[nightshade]

This is always a problem ,contractors have scant knowledge of wildlife
and tender for jobs put out by beauracrats with equally scant knowledge
their workforce generally can work an i-pod but have no clue about wildlife
result losses from the very wildlife the work is supposed to protect

[C C]

About 8 year ago Adders were found slap bang in the middle of our village ( so i was informed, they were probably Grass snakes?). They were found basking out on the pavement, next to an overgrown garden, oblivious to the home owner. "What i wildlife garden", i say!
The last time i have saw an Adder in my area has got to be over 20 years, this i found under an empty cardboard box, scared me half to deaf.

I agree with you there Nightshade, i have worked along side many environmental contractors. Many had a good knowledge about trees, but that was about it. Saying that, there are a few good all rounders about, but they always seem to get out priced. Organisations going for the cheaper option.

[Gill Catton]

I was on a froglife training course a couple of years ago (also encompased reptiles) and this problem was touched on. The way it was desribed to me, was that to restore the heathland environment, trees were being pulled out in order to prevent natural succession from occuring which would of course eventually lead to woodland not heathland.

The problem was that adders hibernate communally sometimes in very large numbers and very frequently within rabbit burrows or other crevices under the trees, now this is a sad case of trying to do good by appropriate management (removing trees outside of the bird breeding season and trying to restore heathland) and unfortuantly damaging things in the process.

From the way it was described to me, you couldn't really blame the contractors they were just doing as they were told. Hopefully in the future more effort will be put into being certain that the tree they want to pull out isn't of overriding value to something else before they go pulling it out. Also that any suitably hibernation site tha is destroyed, is replaced in the same area by something more appropriate to maintaining heathland.