4 September 2006
Habitat upgrade gets thumbs up from Guilsfield newts
Newt numbers bounce back from just 30 to over 70
The great crested newts at Granllyn Pool, a Woodland Trust site at Guilsfield, Powys, have given a thumbs up to the restoration work that took place in their watery habitat last autumn, by returning to the site in greater numbers this summer.
Granllyn Pool is home to one of the biggest and most protected populations of great crested news in Mid Wales, as the site was designed as Special Area of Conservation under European Law when the newts were discovered there in nationally significant numbers in the late 1990s.
But by last year it had become clear that the pool had been gradually drying out and ever fewer great crested newts using it each year. The numbers had dropped from 100 breeding adults in 2000 down to just thirty in 2005. The Woodland Trust (Coed Cadw), the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity, who own the site, were approached by the Countryside Council for Wales, who suggested a radical plan to restore the pool which had been the most important breeding site in Montgomeryshire for the endangered great crested newt.
The Trust agreed to this, but rather than doing the work gradually over a number of years, was keen to take advantage of the unusually dry conditions which made it possible to take the machinery onto (and more importantly - off) the pond itself.
“We didn't want to do half one year and half the next because that would have meant taking the machine back onto the central land mass again just after it had started recovering”, explains Hannah Scrase, who manages the site for the Woodland Trust.
The work went ahead last autumn, and in order to ensure the newts had somewhere to lay their eggs this spring, digger buckets of the pond side vegetation were carefully put back in the water. To supplement this about 100 artificial pond weed plants (made by volunteers from plastic garden bin bags) were ‘planted’ in the pool. These were seen being used within hours of putting them in place.
The good news is that the habitat restoration seems to have worked. The water returned very quickly and the deepest parts of the pool were over 1.5 metres deep this spring. The Countryside Council for Wales has organized seven newt counts this spring with the help of local volunteers.
Hannah Scrase explains in a local newsletter: “These counts have to be done at night – in case any residents have been wondering what is going on when the see people clambering around the pool at night, flashing torches around and calling out to each other ‘there’s another one, just there’.”
The highest number of adult great crested newts counted this spring was seventy one which is up dramatically from just thirty last year.1 This rapid increase indicates they are returning to the pool to breed. To be able to return as adults they must have been alive last year, some living in neighbouring gardens but probably not breeding successfully. The Trust is optimistic that the numbers will continue to increase further as the vegetation recovers and the young hatched this year become adults.
Furthermore, the plant life at the pool has bounced back despite the drought this summer, including marsh cinquefoil, flag iris, water mint and bog bean.
Granllyn Pool is one of the 250 community woods in Wales, England and Northern Ireland created as part of the Woodland Trust’s Millennium Woods on your Doorstep project. Most of the land was planted with native broadleaved trees in November 1999, and the site was extended by 1.2 ha (3.2 acres) in 2004 following a successful fundraising campaign. Like almost all Coed Cadw woods, Granllyn Pool is open for the public to visit at any time, for free. It has its own website at:
www.wt-woods.org.uk/granllynpool This includes a whole range of information about the site including an interactive map.
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For media enquiries contact:
Rory Francis (Publicity and Public Affairs Officer for Wales) on 07760 171174
Afallon, Tanygrisiau, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd LL41 3RH
Email roryfrancis@woodland-trust.org.uk
or Hannah Scrase on 01686 412534.
or The Woodland Trust Press Office on 01476 581121, e-mail media@woodland-trust.org.uk
Notes to editors
1. The survey method is clearly not foolproof as not all newts can be seen from the bank and vegetation can obscure parts of the pond. But it gives a relative measure and is useful for showing whether a population is rising or falling
Coed Cadw (The Woodland Trust)
The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. It has 250,000 members and supporters. The Trust has four key aims: i) No further loss of ancient woodland; ii) Restoring and improving the biodiversity of woods; iii) Increasing new native woodland; iv) Increasing people’s awareness and enjoyment of woodland.
Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 1,000 sites in its care covering approximately 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres). These include over 100 sites in Wales, with a total area of 1,580 hectares (3,900 acres). It offers free public access to nearly all of its sites. Further news can be accessed via www.coed-cadw.org.uk The Trust adopted a new Welsh language name in 2000: “Coed Cadw”. This is an old Welsh term, used in medieval laws to describe protected or preserved woodland.
