This blog was written for the Wirral Amphibian & Reptile Group in November 2021 during the COP 2021 international climate change meeting. I am sharing here as we have met the heatwave of mid July 2022, and also so it can have an easier recourse to a link (the ARG UK platform does not seem to have it or I have not found it yet) and there is a little epilogue to add post-2022 heatwave: As the discussion of climate change and resulting climate breakdown is at the forefront of news at the moment, we highlight how these issues touch the Wirral’s amphibians and reptiles (collectively referred to as “herps”), often in unexpected and counterintuitive ways. Many of us living in the Wirral already notice how our winters have been less snowy the past decade compared to previous. But how is this affecting our herpetofauna on the Wirral, who are sensitive to changes in temperature and have to hibernate through the winter? Some of us have been surprised by seeing frogs moving about on Christmas Day. Do these mid-winter emergences result in their death when wandering around in a daze with nothing to eat and does resumption of cold kill them off? How about changes to rainfall? Or rising temperature? At the Wirral Amphibian & Reptile Group (WiARG) we are doing our bit to see how our local herps are faring in response to a changing climate. Our basic effort is to monitor and take action to build resilience where we can. Some volunteers are monitoring various sites for the initiation of breeding by various amphibians, especially by WiARG secretary Sue Noyce of Common Frogs at Central Park in Wallasey. We have also been checking for earliest emergences for Spring and latest occurrence for autumn in Common Lizard at Harrison Park Wallasey. This year, we still found lizards active mid-October. And there has been our study on how amphibians use coastal habitat down to the strandline at Hoylake-West Kirby, which has implications for inferring changes to sea-level. Sometimes it may be necessary to highlight the need to divert seemingly positive climate action where it will do more harm than good, such as planting of trees in habitat that will actually cause declines of herps. Tree planting to restore lost woodland and reconnect others is great, but planting in habitats like established grasslands, sand dunes, peatland and heathland does shade out the sunny spots herps and other organisms need to live - thankfully the Wirral Tree Strategy does take this into account. As one example, in one park where we found an important Common Lizard population, the rangers diverted tree planting efforts to another site so they would not loose their grassland habitat. The most salient example of how climate change (more realistic rephrase: climate breakdown) is impacting amphibians on the Wirral is at Royden Park near Frankby. We found the Great Crested Newt still occur here, but the single pond we found them breeding was found to dry out before larvae could metamorphose in both years surveyed. We are hoping for a 2022 Spring and Summer that is wet enough and mild enough for the water to stay long enough for the babies to grow, but it doesn’t look good. At the start of this project in 2019 it was already clear that the network of ponds in Royden were far from adequate to support a resilient population. It is likely the loss in the past century of big animals such as deer, beavers, livestock that would have kept the ponds open and resilient has caused them to shrink in size and suitability for pond life. WiARG has been working with the Wirral Council rangers to manage these ponds, trimming branches and small trees from the edge of the ponds and removing debris to reduce anaerobic digestion which reduces oxygen levels. Doing this actually helps stop these ponds releasing greenhouse gases and helps them sequester more carbon. After the initial works by volunteers from WiARG with those at Royden Park, it was realised a more dedicated, drastic action was needed, especially as volunteer time in the winter of 2020-21 was lost to covid-19 lockdowns. So the Volunteer Rangers of Royden Park led a grant bid with WiARG to get contractors to drastically thin out trees and line one pond adjacent to another where crested newts had been seen but not yet breeding. The grant bid with the Burbo Bank Community Fund was successful and we are waiting for works to commence. This should produce a pond that is more resistant to drying out during droughts. With the negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow in progress, changes to the climate are with us already and we need to be vigilant to how these changes will impact our wildlife. As efforts continue to reduce emissions and capture carbon, WiARG will be proactively working to understand how these changes are affecting our newts, frogs, toads, lizards (and snakes if any show up) and do what we can to mitigate the negative impacts for a resilient and healthy community across the Wirral. Update July 2022 As of July 2022, after what we thought was a reassuringly wet Spring and early Summer, the UK was hit by an unprecedented heatwave, parts of the country over 40 Celcius, most of it comfortably in the 30s. By this time, the new pond at Royden Park had been dug (in February-March) with native aquatic plants planted. This pond was still holding water, while most of the other ponds at the park had dried out, especially the one pond where we have found Great Crested Newt breeding. This is likely to be the third year in a row that this newt subpopulation has failed to complete their life cycle. We were also finding fewer individuals from surveys this season. It is therefore very worrying that we may have been too late to create this deeper pond resilient to drying. We will be monitoring the situation, but it may now be time for a broader strategy for Great Crested Newt conservation and ponds on the Wirral.
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