The world’s great crested newt population plummeted as the species’ habitat disappeared, particularly in the last 100 years. Here in Suffolk, one of their strongholds, pond and associated terrestrial habitat conservation, along with their strictly protected legal status, may have gone a long way towards stabilising the population. We don’t actually know this, but we do know that the conservation techniques (pond restoration and terrestrial habitat creation) do reliably result in great crested newt colonisation when applied appropriately.

Our knowledge of the great crested newt population is still very patchy, despite much survey effort, particularly by Suffolk Amphibians and Reptiles Group (SARG). Current records number in the order of 200, though the number of breeding ponds must be about 2,000, there being about 22,000 ponds in Suffolk. We do have a good idea of which parts of the county are generally the strong areas for great crested newts, but more than nine out of ten of their breeding ponds are still unrecognised as such and thus more vulnerable to development, degradation and loss.

This is the main reason why more great crested newt survey effort is needed. Now is a fitting time for surveying. The Suffolk Ponds Project, run from the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, is able to secure access permission from landowners involved in agri-environment schemes, removing the headache of volunteers having to expend energy finding out who owns a pond before surveying. In addition the project is able to follow up surveys with detailed advice to the owners of surveyed ponds. Thus during the period of this project, till May 2006, you not only get more ponds surveyed for your effort, but also act as the catalyst for some positive management to occur.

So please do put your name forward. Even if you think you may only be able to spare a couple of afternoons during the season (generally March to June), come along to the training session in one, and use the other to survey ponds. That one afternoon will still be a few ponds surveyed that otherwise would not have got done.

The surveying carried out as part of this campaign is generally concentrated on egg-searching. A training session is being arranged for March to provide volunteers with the necessary skills. Egg searching is a relatively easy and reliable way of establishing great crested newt presence. Where equipment permits, net sampling can also be carried out. Night-time torching is not being included in the methodology.

As great crested newt surveying needs to be licensed, we are currently making arrangements to ensure a licence will cover your volunteer effort. If you would like to get your own survey licence, experience with this latest campaign can be used to gain a reference for a future licence application.

Practicalities of the campaign

Please apply to the Suffolk Wildlife Trust for a volunteer registration form, so that you are automatically included in the process of survey allocation. The address is The Ponds Project, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Brooke House, Ashbocking, IP6 9JY.

If a surveying opportunity comes up in your area, the Ponds Project Officer (PPO) may phone you up to ask you whether you can take the job on. If in that particular instance it is not convenient for you to do so, it may be passed to another volunteer or covered by the PPO himself.

The PPO will arrange survey locations, with access permission included. Surveyors will be sent a map, sometimes an aerial photograph, and some contact details. Surveyors will generally be required to telephone the site owner between two days and a week prior to their intended visit date, to confirm that access is possible on that day, and to arrange a meeting to ascertain, where applicable, more precise pond locations and access routes.

To help keep surveying time to a minimum, it can be helpful to let an owner know that although they are very welcome to accompany you on your pond visits, each pond can take upwards of 45 minutes to survey (particularly if accompanied) and you do not need them to be present. It can however be useful to ask the appropriate person what they know about a given pond e.g. whether any newts have been observed there, whether fish are known to be present, whether the pond dries out, what purposes the pond might have served historically, what the pond is currently used or appreciated for, and whether there are any plans for the pond (side 1 of the pond survey form).

Thereafter, the survey can be carried out using the project’s own survey form. The survey forms should then be sent to SWT Head Office, Brooke House, Ashbocking, within three days of the survey of the owner’s set of ponds being completed. The PPO will then take care of feeding results back to the owner, county recorders etc. You, as a surveyor, will not be giving conservation advice to the landowners. That side of things will be taken care of centrally by the PPO to ensure advice is tied in with agri-environment schemes etc.

Egg searching (and netting), as part of this survey will be covered by the Project’s English Nature great crested newt surveyors’ licence. Care should be taken to disturb newts and their habitat as little as possible. Once presence is ascertained, no further newt surveying is required for that pond – for reasons of efficiency within the project’s aims, estimates of population size are not required (though a record on the form as to population size taken from ease of detection and overall habitat impressions may be of some later use).

To avoid spreading nuisance plants between ponds, avoid direct contact with your net or boots for any pond where an invasive alien plant is observed, unless you can be sure of effectively rinsing off all traces before visiting another pond. Plants of particular concern are New Zealand Pygmyweed Crassula helmsii and least duckweed Lemna minuta.

Travel expenses are claimable: the project can pay 10p per mile driven. Petrol receipts are not required, just a log of each trip’s destinations and total relevant distance covered.

I hope you will help the Suffolk Ponds Project achieve the maximum amount of pond conservation, within its two year funded period.

Nicholas Meade,
Ponds Project Officer

Suffolk Wildlife Trust, telephone 01473 890089, mobile 07940 572 656

Click here to send e-mail: nickm@suffolkwildlife.cix.co.uk

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