Help protect the great crested newts in Aylesbury Vale

Archived press release

Date Published: 27/01/06

Aylesbury Vale District Council is seeking volunteers to help protect the great crested newts in the Vale. The council’s green spaces team are trying to find places where great crested newts are living and breeding to safeguard the future o...

Aylesbury Vale District Council is seeking volunteers to help protect the great crested newts in the Vale.

The council’s green spaces team are trying to find places where great crested newts are living and breeding to safeguard the future of this threatened species in the district.

The great crested newt is believed to be the most rapidly declining amphibian in Europe. This is thought to be mainly due to a loss of suitable ponds for them to breed in.

In 2003 the green spaces team started to recruit volunteers across the district to help compile a list of pools harbouring great crested newts or that had the potential to be breeding sites. Each year, between February and June, small teams of volunteers go out at dusk to look for newts around ponds. It is during this time of year that the newts congregate in ponds to mate and lay their eggs.

As the great crested newt is a protected species, looking for them in this manner requires a licence from English Nature. Many of the current volunteers have the appropriate licence which allows them to take people along who have not been trained to look for these elusive amphibians.

Paul Holton, Green Spaces Officer (Biodiversity) at AVDC, said: “To be able to protect great crested newts we need to know where they are. We have already found 149 ponds which support the species but there are still many more ponds to visit. We are asking local residents to help us try and find more great crested newts so that this valuable and threatened species can continue to thrive in the Vale.”

Volunteers will be going out again in February to try and find great crested newts in the Vale. If you would like to get involved in the project as a volunteer or if you know of a pond that harbours newts, please contact the council’s biodiversity team on 01296 427972 or email pholton@aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk