ARC Professional Training Courses 2013

We are pleased to announces our professional training programme for 2013, conducted in partnership with the Field Studies Council. To see more details about these courses download the brochure here. All bookings for these courses are taken by the Field Studies Council. To register and pay online, please visit the FSC website.

The six courses available are:

Great Crested Newts & Licensing for Surveys
INTRODUCTORY LEVEL 

28th March 2013 AND 3rd April 2013

Working with Natterjacks: understanding their ecology, surveys and licensing
INTRODUCTORY LEVEL

25th April 2013

Lives of British Amphibians: ecology & identification
OPEN TO EVERYONE:

11th -12th May 2013

Reptile Surveys
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL:

15th May 2013

Reptiles & Amphibians
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL: ACCREDITED BY MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

17th - 20th May 2013

Great Crested Newts, Licensing & Mitigation
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL:

26th - 28th November 2013

WELSH DRAGONS ATTRACT HUGE INTEREST!

The recent Wales Amphibian and Reptile Symposium (WARS) and Wales and the Marches ARG Meeting was a hugely successful event, attracting  seventeen speakers and seventy five individuals from a range of backgrounds, including ARGs, ecological consultants, county council ecologists and academics.

The event was organised by Mark Barber, through ARC’s Community Engagement in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Across Wales project, which is funded by CCW. It was held at the centrally located Media Resource Centre in Llandrindod Wells, on Saturday the 3rd of November. A range of enjoyable talks focussed on the enormous variety of work being undertaken for amphibians and reptiles in Wales – from modelling newt distribution to reconnecting populations through building ponds! It is hoped this event will encourage further action for the conservation of Welsh herpetofauna by boosting ARG activity and by inspiring the creation of new ARGs. A proceedings to the symposium will be released in due course.

ARC Christmas Cards

ARC once again have some brilliant and original Christmas cards for sale!

You can either purchase a set of eight cards including four herpafauna themed designs created by Leon Hills (author/illustrator of How Very Very Nice! and And After That He Ate Them!) for £3.50 (plus £1 p&p)

or a set of five cards featuring a design by our own Research & Monitoring Officer, Dr John Wilkinson for £2.50 (plus £1 p&p).

 If you would like to purchase some of these lovely cards please contact us via e-mail at enquiries@are-trust.org or call us on 01202 391319.

For more information about Leon Hills work please e-mail Lhillsillustrator@btinternet.com

ARC Stocking Fillers!

It's almost that time of year again, when we start to think about Christmas gifts. How about treating the Herpafauna enthusiast in your life (or yourself for that matter!) to some of our lovely stocking fillers. This way they can show their support to ARC and know that they have helped fund our valuable work protecting the UK's native amphibians and reptiles.

ARC Pin Badge - £1.50 (plus £1 p&p)

ARC Lanyard - £2.00 (plus £1 p&p)

ARC 100% Cotton Bag - £2.50 (plus £1.50 p&p)
Fairtrade accredited, ethically audited, carbon neutral factory and hand washable
37.5cm x 43cm

**SPECIAL OFFER**

If you choose to buy all three of our ARC stocking fillers we will give you a special discounted price of £5.00 (plus £1.50 p&p) for the whole bundle!

If you'd like to purchase some of these lovely gifts please contact us via e-mail at enquiries@arc-trust.org or call us on 01202 391319.

First phase of the Million Ponds Project is a success!

The first phase of the Million Ponds Project, funded by the Tubney Trust and Biffaward, has reached a successful conclusion.

The project, coordinated by Pond Conservation and involving Amphibian and Reptile Conservation as the lead partner, has helped to create over 1000 ponds to benefit Biodiversity Action Plan species across England and Wales. Over the past four years the project has:

• focussed attention on the variety of freshwater habitats needed by these species.
• highlighted the importance of pond design.
• raised awareness of the value of temporary ponds.

A wide variety of water bodies has been created by the Million Ponds Project, from large ponds designed for water voles, to shallow temporary pools on sand dunes designed for the natterjack toad.

Amphibian and Reptile Conservation’s role in the project has been to help create ponds for the natterjack toad, common toad, great crested newt and grass snake. This has been a great success, with over 467 ponds created for the great crested newt and 47 for the natterjack toad. This is perhaps one of the most successful efforts to create such ponds in recent years.

David Orchard, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation’s Pond Project Officer, said “We know that amphibians need good terrestrial habitats, but without suitable breeding ponds they are unable to survive. The Million Ponds Project has been an opportunity to support amphibian populations across England and Wales in a very practical way.”

Another important achievement of the project has been to increase general understanding of the importance of clean water, the essential component of good quality ponds. (Clean water is that which is not contaminated by runoff from roads or agriculture or excessively disturbed, for example by artificially high numbers of birds.)

The project has produced a huge range of material which is free to download from the Pond Conservation website.

The Million Ponds Project is a fifty year vision with the aim of ensuring the UK has at least one million ponds in the landscape, approximately the same number that existed in 1900. Work over the past four years has been the first step towards this ambitious target, providing a firm foundation for the future.

David Orchard
Pond Project Officer

ARC Friends Day 2012!

On Saturday 15th September Amphibian and Reptile Conservation held the first dedicated Friends Day in Dorset since becoming Amphibian and Reptile Conservation in 2009. We had 14 attendees, some travelling from as far afield as Wales and Suffolk to come and meet species they hadn’t seen before! 

Dr Tony Gent, ARC’s C.E.O kicked off the day with an introduction to Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, what we get up to and media coverage of snakes - especially the adder and how it has suffered through history with a bad reputation. Gary Powell, Senior Reserves Manager followed with his presentation on Reptiles and gave a run- down of our native species, how they behave and how they use their habitats and just before lunch John Buckley, Amphibian Conservation Officer talked about our native amphibians including the extensive work he has done over the years with Natterjack toads. After a quick tea break Gary went on to describe how we manage the heath to benefit herpetofauna and what would happen if the management didn’t take place.

Over the lunch break we had a grass snake, two smooth snakes, two slow-worms and three sand lizards to introduce to everybody. For some it was their first experience of seeing a smooth snake in the flesh and they were surprised at just how smooth and silky they were to touch! The sand lizards were also a rare treat for some - many thanks to Martin Noble of New Forest Ecological Consultants for lending us the two captive bred sand lizards!

Before long we had the snakes and lizards bagged up and we made our way on to Parley Common. Gary did a great job showing everybody round pointing out areas of interest such as potential hibernacula. One of my highlights was the release of a rescued sand lizard which had been found on site a couple of days earlier and had been trapped in some scrapped scaffolding for up to two months. After a good meal of crickets the night before, he reluctantly left Gary (minus part of his tail) to fatten himself up before going in to hibernation!

The sun was very hot in the afternoon so it wasn’t ideal for spotting reptiles out in the open but we did find some under tins and some common lizards basking in the gorse. Heathland is full of wildlife and whilst we made our way around the reserve to put our snakes and slow-worms back under their tins we saw buzzards, stonechats, caterpillars, butterflies, spiders, grass hoppers and heathland plants such as the marsh gentian and sundew and these attracted just as much attention!

It was a superb day and I really enjoyed meeting and speaking to everyone. Many thanks to those who came along to enjoy the day with us, to the staff members that put their time in and to John Hanrahan - Manager of the Heatherlands Centre.

You can watch the film about the day by clicking here!

Angela Reynolds

Rare Sand Lizards Released Back to the Wild at Farnham Heath

Today [Monday 17 September] conservationists are giving the UK's rarest lizard a helping hand, when 40 captive bred sand lizards will be released at the RSPB’s Farnham Heath nature reserve.

The release is the start of a long-term conservation project to restore the species to this part of its historic range.

The RSPB is working with Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (ARC) and Natural England, the Government conservation authority, to safeguard the future of these magnificent lizards.

Due to vast habitat losses across the UK, sand lizards now only occur naturally in Surrey and Dorset where it lives on sandy heathland, and further north in Merseyside where it is confined to coastal sand dune systems.

Sand lizards are believed to have been lost from the Farnham Heath site when the land was planted up with a commercial conifer crop after the Second World War.

Since 2004 the RSPB has restored over 70 ha of heathland at Farnham Heath and much of this is now in a suitable condition to support this beautiful animal once again.

Mike Coates, the RSPB site manager for Farnham Heath said: “There have always been sand lizards present on Gong Hill, which is next to our reserve, but they were confined to a very small pocket of suitable habitat.
 
Once our heathland restoration work started to take effect, they did spread onto our land west of Old Frensham Road. However, even minor roads can act as a barrier, and, despite searching, there was no sign of them on the remainder of our reserve, east of the road.
 
So we decided that we should use animals from the ARC's on-going captive breeding programme, to establish a second population on the eastern part of the reserve.”

ARC, under licence from Natural England, maintain a captive breeding population of animals, originally drawn from sites in Surrey, to provide a source of young lizards that can be re-introduced to areas where suitable habitat has been created.

Rob Free, from ARC said: “The superb restoration and management of the Farnham Heath site has allowed good recovery of many of our native heathland species.

It has also allowed us this opportunity to help restore the sand lizard’s former historic range through this joint partnership re-introduction. We believe this has every chance of success as the site is very well managed to cater for all heathland species and is ideal for this particular species’ habitat requirements.”

This is the start of a three year project, with further releases of 40-50 juvenile lizards planned for each autumn.

The UK’s largest lizard, reaching up to 20cm in length, sand lizards are active from late March through to late October; with the males emerge from hibernation first followed by younger animals then females.

Mike Coates added: “During the breeding season the male's sides become highly coloured, with some individuals turning almost completely bright green.
 
We hope they will thrive here at Farnham Heath, and that visitors might be able to glimpse the spectacular males basking alongside paths in years to come.”