After the South East Regional Meeting historic vote last year, followed by press coverage of the call for further protection for the UK's only venonmous snake species the Adder the government advisors Natural England has established a short project which has been termed the Adder Status Project or ASP.

The Adder has consistently been ranked the rarest of the widespread species within the National Amphibian & Reptile Recording Scheme, Add an Adder collated historic data on adder presence over the the UK while Make the Adder Count has been collating count data on adder sites across the UK for the last 7 years. Local groups have been working hard on their adder populations examples of these projects are found in Herefordshire ART (Whats that Snake?), Surrey ARG (Adder Project) and Kent RAG (Adders in Decline). All this information is vital to understanding the bigger picture for the adder as well as reviewing what needs to be done for the future of the species.

The Project is being spearheaded by Dr Chris Gleed Owen on behalf of Amphibian & Reptile Conservation who is working Steve Langham from Surrey Amphibian & Reptile Group. The project is going to try to assess the current situation regarding the status of the Adder in the UK. Using predictive mapping and other such wizardry it is hoped that habitat assessments can be undertaken via the internet to help local volunteers and other surveyors to properly target the adder as a species of concern each year.

The Make the Adder Count Project was relaunched at the Herpetofauna Workers Meeting 2012 with a successful workshop and has now its own reporting system into the Record Pool - www.maketheaddercount.org

The request:- For people who would like to help verify records across the country please email Chris on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

'I’m currently working, to a very tight schedule, on a project for ARC, funded by NE. It’s an assessment of the status of adders across England (working title: “Adder Status Project (ASP)”). I am currently trying to gather as much adder data as possible, from all over England, in the short timescale of now until mid-February (c.15^th) . We’re after all reptile records, not just adder; as this will help us analyse false negatives vs real absence. We’ve already got ARC’s Rare Species Database, plus the NARRS, MTAC, Add an Adder and Sliding Scales datasets. I have also put in requests via the NBN Gateway, for full access to all the individual county LRCs’ datasets. Some have already responded positively, and I’m hoping quite a few more do. It goes without saying that all data will be treated sensitively and with due acknowledgement. We have to compile data as quickly as possible, as the project ends in mid-March, and we need the data in the next week or two at most. I know most of the ARGs have a good relationship with their local ARGs, and regularly share data with them; so I should get most ARG data via the NBN/LRCs route. But I’m also wondering if there might be any reptile data out there that has not made its way to the relevant LRCs? I thought perhaps you might be able to out a request please to find out? We will be grateful for any reptile data (1km resolution or greater) from any English county, before the middle of Feb. Steve Langham is working flat out on the habitat & species data wizardry, and I am trying to gather the raw materials. We will be reporting to ARC (& them to NE) in mid-March. The aim is to assess the status of adders across England, as best as we are able to at present; and to recommend the way forward for monitoring and setting conservation goals. Hopefully there will be a follow-on project later in the year if funds materialise, and that would allow wider consultation and participation. Many folks will be hearing from me in the meantime too.

I also wonder if any of the ARG contacts would be able to assist in verifying/validating adder records for me please? Any help with this would be a godsend, as we have thousands of Add an Adder records that need verifying.

Thanks in advance,'

Chris

Dr Chris Gleed-Owen, Director & Principal Ecologist, CGO Ecology Limited, 5 Cranbourne House, 12 Knole Road, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH1 4DQ - 01202 251114 - 07846 137346 - www.cgoecology.com