The Herpetological Conservation Trust is a Charitable Company limited by guarantee. We are dedicated to amphibians and reptiles and lead the UK's conservation efforts for these animals.
 
 

Monitoring

The ability to assess how well a species is faring is critical to ensure its future conservation. Monitoring the ‘Conservation Status’ of all UK amphibian and reptile species is therefore central to The HCT’s mission statement. For many years, we have run national monitoring schemes for the rare herpetofauna species (natterjack toad, sand lizard, smooth snake), and in the last few years, we have started monitoring schemes for the pool frog and the adder. More recently, we have implemented new national schemes covering all UK herpetofauna, specifically the ‘National Amphibian Survey’ and the ‘National Reptile Survey’. There is growing concern that even our widespread amphibian and reptile species are in national decline, and we need surveys to tell us more about trends in their status across the UK. Collectively, all our survey and monitoring initiatives are known as ‘NARRS’ – the National Amphibian and Reptile Recording Scheme. Our monitoring activities are led overall by The HCT’s Research & Monitoring Officer, John W Wilkinson, whilst other staff lead on some of the specific monitoring programmes.

National Amphibian and Reptile Recording Scheme (NARRS)


NARRS is an umbrella for all the monitoring initiatives that The HCT coordinates across the UK. Through volunteer-based surveys, we aim to monitor the conservation status of all native amphibian and reptile species, and keep an eye on the introduced species. NARRS relies upon close partnership between The HCT and the ARG UK voluntary network, the statutory agencies, NGOs and other organisations. NARRS has its own website at www.narrs.org.uk where you can find out about the various surveys and monitoring schemes, a list of all the partner organisations, information on how NARRS was developed, and how to get involved if you want to join the thousand existing volunteers. As well as being accessible via the NARRS website, some of the recording schemes also have their own websites. The surveys and monitoring schemes that we coordinate are listed below.

Rare species monitoring schemes:


Widespread species monitoring schemes:

Web-based surveys:


NARRS was developed thanks to generous funding from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Natural England and Countryside Council for Wales, as well as core funding from The HCT.

Reports on the development and implementation of NARRS are available as downloads from our Documents & Downloads section:
NARRS scoping report 2005
Phase 1 final report 2007
NARRS Implementation Plan 2007

The HCT Rare Species Database

In 2002, we established a computerised database to hold all our species monitoring records and nature reserve management records. Such a resource is crucial to species status assessment, conservation management, decision-making and the development planning system. Most of the funding was generously provided by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, with additional funding from Natural England and Countryside Council for Wales. The HCT holds nearly 40 years of natterjack monitoring data, 20 years of sand lizard and smooth snake monitoring data, and site management records spanning around 10 years. These are held on an MS Access database developed for us by James Perrins of exeGesIS SDM Ltd. A copy of the database is available via the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Gateway, where it is accessible to all. We operate data sharing partnerships with other organisations and individuals, and provide data upon request for development planning and other purposes. The Rare Species Database Project is coordinated by The HCT’s Research & Monitoring Officer, John W Wilkinson.

GIS Population Inventories


Alongside our Rare Species Database, we have also created GIS (digital mapping) population inventories of all known natterjack toad, sand lizard and smooth snake populations. The natterjack toad population inventory contains coordinates and details of all the thousand or so known breeding ponds, and site boundary polygons defining the likely extent of occupied habitat at all 58 natterjack sites. The sand lizard population inventory comprises polygons bounding all 580 population foci, which highlight the main population centres and the most important topographical and habitat features. The inventory also contains polygons of over 500 ‘potential foci’ showing locations that would be suitable for future habitat restoration and sand lizard translocations. The smooth snake population inventory contains boundary polygons for all the 160 or so smooth snake sites. These represent all known sites, but the concept of ‘site’ is less easy to define with smooth snakes, and the notional boundaries between populations and subpopulations can be quite arbitrary. Some of the sites in the inventory may need to be aggregated; others may need to be subdivided.

As well as creating polygons showing the spatial extent of populations, these GIS inventories contain information on the history of each population, site protection, data capture, and an assessment of population status. The population assessment was carried out in late 2004 as part of a ‘Baseline datasets’ project commissioned by English Nature and Countryside Council for Wales. (Note that figures have changed since then as a result of recent reintroductions, and recent sand lizard survey work). You can read the reports for England and Wales here (without appendices, due to site sensitivity.

Baseline datasets report 2004 – England


Baseline datasets report 2004 – Wales



View our Data Sharing Policy here

View our Data Interpretation Guidelines here

 
 

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