Image from Fred O'Hare

This is perhaps a sign that adders are now well advanced due to the warm and sunny weather or it may be that this female is malnourished and is starting to feed earlier than normal. Fred observed that she was certainly struggling with her prey!  

If you want a list of the many events county wide which KRAG attend, watch the Upcoming Events section of the website.

Jo and Paul at the event

Common toad © Brett Lewis.

 Our Conservation Partners, Froglife, have been running their ‘Toads on Roads’ project for over twenty years, with around 880 toad migratory crossings mapped across the country to date.

One of the registered crossings is luckily just 5 minutes from a KRAG committee member’s front door, so upon hearing horror stories of mass toad mortality at this location near Faversham, Amy Wright contacted Jan Williams (a local resident and toad patroller) and together they quickly recruited volunteers for a Toads on Roads style patrol.

 Their toad patrol started on Friday 9^th March and they quickly realised that many more toads were to arrive when, on Saturday, they collected about 400 toads marching forward across the road with only one thing on their mind!  On Saturday 17^th March the toads left the pond, marching back across the busy road in great numbers and keeping Amy and Jan and their volunteers very busy.

 All in all the volunteers moved over 2000 toads from the road this March, just within rush hour traffic times. According to the local pond owners, they made a huge difference to the number of toad mortalities. This is great news and makes all the hard work worthwhile!  Well done to Amy, Jan and the volunteers; Adam Bedwell, Anna Williams, Tim Bell and his Mum, Kari McSherry, Isla Hoffman-Heap and Stephanie Buell. A great job well done.

 Unfortunately there are many areas in Kent where toads are not as lucky. This is why KRAG (with the support of Froglife) would like to put forward a major push to recruit, coordinate and support more volunteers to safely give the toads in our County a helping hand.

If you know of an area where toads are migrating across roads, if you are struggling to give a helping hand or if you are successfully patrolling your own site, we would love to hear from you!  

Most of the toad migrations will have taken place in 2012 now, but KRAG are hoping to work with Froglife partners and coordinate a much bigger push in 2013 so please contact us and watch this space.

(For more info on Amy's recent Toad Patrol, watch out for the next newsletter where the story is in full with photo's. You can receive the most recent issues of the KRAG newsletter by becomming a member). 

Grass Snake - Brett Lewis

Not very pretty – but a des res for our native reptiles.

Recording and identifying amphibians and reptiles goes mobile!

Isoperla Ltd has worked with Amphibian & Reptile Conservation to upgrade their award winning smartphone application HerptileId:

The application is available for use on iPhones, iPod touch and iPad.

Herptile Id is an easy to use but comprehensive field guide. All native species and introduced species are covered.

You can keep a log of reptile and amphibian sightings using the app and take a photograph too. Reptile and amphibian sightings provide important conservation information and this can be sent in real time to the ARG-UK Record Pool database automatically from the app. This information will be used to help conservation of our native species.

Rated as No3 of the top ten smart phone apps by BBC Countryfile

Download Amphibian & Reptile Conservation's guide to the UK Herpetofauna developed by Isoperla Ltd which is available through the iTunes Store today!

 

From the press release:

Experts have declared that Britain’s only venomous snake, the adder, is in urgent need of conservation action. With adder numbers declining in many areas, conservationists paint a bleak picture for its future unless help is forthcoming.

More than a hundred adder experts and conservationists have attended a special conference at Greenwich University in Chatham, Kent, to discuss ways of conserving the species. The conference was organised by Kent Reptile and Amphibian Group (KRAG) on behalf of a national network of conservation groups, Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK (ARG UK).

Attendees voted unanimously to adopt a motion that:

‘The adder is in more urgent need of new conservation efforts than any other reptile or amphibian species in Britain.’

Despite its widespread distribution across the whole of Britain, adder numbers are thought to be declining rapidly in many areas. The species is already extinct from whole counties such as Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire. The adder conference held on Saturday 19 November 2011 saw speakers come from across Britain, as well as France and Switzerland, to give their interpretations of the situation facing adders in their area.

‘It was a great success, and amazing to see so many people who care about saving adders. Hopefully now help is at hand,’ - Gail Austen-Price, KRAG Chairman.

 

One of the biggest threats facing adders today is accidental damage or destruction of their winter hibernation sites. Adders often hibernate communally in mammal burrows or under tree roots, and if such a place is damaged, a whole population can be wiped out.

Despite nature conservation being implemented on thousands of protected sites across Britain, it is often these sites where adders suffer the most. Well-meaning activities such as scrub clearance can have unforeseen consequences that are devastating for hibernating adders. The ARG UK adder conference set a milestone by announcing that the adder’s plight is reaching a critical point, and now is the time for government bodies and conservation organisations to take action. ARG UK now plans to set up a website for a flagship survey project called Make the Adder Count, where volunteers monitor adder numbers at their local sites. ARG UK also wants to set up a register of hibernation sites, to alert local authorities and other countryside managers of these crucial locations. Conservationists admit that adders suffer from a poor public image, and the next step is to produce a battle plan to raise awareness and appreciation.

'The adder is an enigmatic snake, steeped in history and folklore from the druids to Shakespeare and Arthurian legend. It would be tragic to see it disappear, but it suffers from a public image problem that makes it difficult for many people to love,’ -  Dr Chris Gleed-Owen.

 

 

In Kent, KRAG has been monitoring local adder populations for many years. Despite significant efforts to raise awareness within the county, adders remain vulnerable to disturbance and persecution. Our 'Adders in Decline' Project may have been initiated 7 years ago, but its work has barely begun...

If you share our concerns about the plight of what is surely one Britain's most exciting wild animals please get in touch. KRAG needs active volunteers who are prepared to help record the location of adders, talk to landowners and help convince conservation organisations that the adder is a species worth conserving.

Book your place at the ARGUK SE Regional Meeting to be hosted by KRAG and London ARG at the Medway Campus of University of Greenwich on Saturday, November 19th.  The programme is nearly finalised and will focus on adder conservation.  Highlights include a review of the ground breaking work in adder conservation taking place in both Kent and Surrey as well as presentations from KRAG's European partners, Conservatoire des Sites Natureles and the University of Basel.

We are now accepting bookings so don't miss out.  The cost is £10 for members of an Amphibian and Reptile Group and £20 for all others.  Price includes lunch and refreshments.  For more information contact Mike Phillips.

Download the booking form here.