Leaping forward for reptiles and amphibians
Join us at Cashel Forest and Native Forest Centre for a Pond Doctor event where we can answer all your questions on pond creation, management and restoration! Our expert staff will have information on hand so you can create your own perfect pond for wildlife or learn more about Scotland’s amphibians and reptiles.
Please look out for signs for Cashel when using the post code to navigate to the area as the post code alone won’t lead you to the exact event location.
Froglife completed work on a new pond in Frome, Somerset, in collaboration with Frome Town Council in February this year. After just two months the pond is already brimming with life!
Froglife is a UK wildlife conservation charity focusing on the protection of reptiles and amphibians and the habitats they rely on. The charity’s “Green Pathways for Life” project provides opportunities for people living with dementia and their carers to get active and connect with nature conservation, to boost wellbeing and help local wildlife. The new pond was created over several weeks, with Froglife’s dementia groups taking an active role from initial planning to final planting up with native water plants.
Now the pond is established, the groups have been monitoring the wildlife species moving into the pond. The first survey, just two months after the pond was created, found the species count shot up from zero to more than ten – including frog tadpoles, fly larvae, water snails, pond skaters and other invertebrates.
Froglife’s Somerset Project Officer Zak says “although the flora and fauna are still developing in this new pond it’s amazing to see how quickly aquatic life can flourish when we provide the right habitat. We’ve already found this rich community of species, which in turn will benefit all kinds of wildlife in the surrounding area. It’s also a fantastic learning resource for local residents from school kids to our groups for people living with dementia, who regularly use and look after the site. A real win-win for wildlife and people!”
Unfortunately the UK lost 50% of its ponds in the 20th century and 80% of those remaining are in a poor condition. Many of our iconic wildlife species are in decline, including frogs and toads. Froglife research in 2016 found that common toads have declined by almost 70% in the last 30 years.
With Amphibian Week from 1st-7th May, it’s never been a better time to join Froglife’s Just Add Water campaign by creating your own pond! If space is tight a small container pond can be a huge boost for wildlife including amphibians, even in heavily urban environments. Why not give it a go with our free guide? https://www.froglife.org/info-advice/just-add-water/
Somerset Green Pathways for Life is funded by Somerset County Council, Frome Town Council, The Florence Cohen Charitable Trust, The Nineveh Trust, The Hospital Saturday Fund, Somerset Community Foundation, and Anne Jones.
This week, the sixth edition of Conservation Evidence’s flagship publication, What Works in Conservation, is published. What Works provides a freely-available, comprehensive overview of the expert assessment of evidence for the effectiveness (or not) of management actions collated within Conservation Evidence synopses. It is a freely-available resource for conservation managers, practitioners and policy-makers who want to incorporate evidence into their management decisions.
The exciting addition to What Works in Conservation 2021 is the inclusion of evidence for all mammals, with the addition of the Terrestrial Mammal Conservation and Marine and Freshwater Mammal Conservation synopses, as well as the 2021 update of the Bat Conservation synopsis (the Primate Conservation synopsis was added in 2017). This means that decision-makers working in mammal conservation across the world now have access to a free resource to help inform their work to conserve threatened species.
What’s included?
Flying high – expanding the evidence-base for Bat Conservation
The 2021 edition of What Works includes the results from the assessment of the third annual update of the Bat Conservation synopsis. With new evidence published each year, and summarised in each edition of the synopsis, our revised assessments highlight the value of continually updating the evidence base for conservation. What Works 2021 includes new evidence for 29 conservation actions, 16 of which have changed effectiveness category from What Works 2020 as a result of the newly summarised evidence. This includes 11 actions, ranging from “Use non-lethal measures to prevent bats from accessing fruit in orchards” to “Prevent turbine blades from turning at low wind speeds”, where experts are more certain than previously that the action is beneficial for bats, and two actions where the new evidence remains too limited for a conclusion to be drawn. However, three actions are a little more complex. The use of prescribed burning had previously been assessed as “Likely to be beneficial”, but three new studies have highlighted potential harms, leading to the new assessment concluding there is a trade-off between the benefits and harms to bats of this action. For two other actions, “Deter bats from turbines using ultrasound” and “Breed bats in captivity”, the addition of new studies with mixed results has increased the uncertainty in their effectiveness, changing their assessment category to “Unknown effectiveness” (from “Likely to be beneficial” and “Unlikely to be beneficial”, respectively). This demonstrates the importance of continually building upon a comprehensive, global evidence base, which captures the variation inherent in biological responses to conservation actions.
Deep dive – mixed results for Marine and Freshwater Mammal Conservation
Despite the popularity of whales, dolphins and seals, the Marine and Freshwater Mammal synopsis found a paucity of evidence for many proposed conservation actions. Where evidence does exist, the overall effectiveness of commonly used actions varied. For example, rescuing and releasing stranded or trapped marine and freshwater mammals, and installing exclusion or escape devices for mammals on fishing nets, were found to be beneficial, or likely to be beneficial, respectively. Other actions such as using acoustic devices on fishing gear and hand-rearing orphaned young of marine and freshwater mammals were found to have trade-offs between benefits and harms. Meanwhile, the translocation of marine mammals away from aquaculture systems, with the aim of reducing human-wildlife conflict, was actually found to be ineffective or harmful. This demonstrates the importance of gathering and assessing the available evidence, to improve the effectiveness and cost efficiency of future conservation efforts.
Back on dry land – training marsupials for Terrestrial Mammal Conservation
Reading studies from around the world, and from over 70 years of conservation, we love coming across ingenious tests of conservation actions, as well as ingenious actions themselves. In the Terrestrial Mammal synopsis, we discovered that conservationists in Australia have tested whether naive native mammals can be trained to avoid non-native predators, such as cats and foxes. By comparing “trained” bilbies, which were exposed to a ‘mock attack’ by thrusting a dead cat at them and spraying them with cat urine, with “untrained” bilbies not exposed to an attack, researchers found that despite some evidence for changes in behaviour, there was no increase in long-term survival in the trained group. Our assessment concluded that the evidence for that action was too limited to determine its effectiveness, as there were only two studies and ideally this would be tested on a wider range of target species. The assessment was similar for evidence for training captive-bred mammals.
Bringing it home – conservation in your back garden
Although many conservation actions included in What Works are likely to be carried out by practitioners or policy-makers, some can be implemented by the general public. In the Terrestrial Mammal synopsis, five studies tested the effectiveness of using collar-mounted devices (such as bells and neoprene flaps) to reduce the predation of wild mammals by cats, and the assessment found that overall, this was beneficial. Similar results were found for the same action in the Bird Conservation synopsis, but with only two studies, the evidence was assessed as being too limited to draw conclusions. The ongoing update to the Bird Conservation synopsis may provide more information for future assessments.
What Works in numbers
The additive nature of What Works in Conservation means that this new sixth edition is the largest that we have ever produced – for the first time, we have tipped over 1,000 pages. It provides an assessment of the effectiveness of 2,426 conservation actions, covering the results from 15 Conservation Evidence synopses (six synopses have not yet been assessed). The underlying evidence comes from 5,131 individual scientific papers, reports and book chapters, which have reported the results of their tests of conservation actions. And this isn’t just the result of work by the team at Conservation Evidence: 215 experts, practitioners and academics from all over the world have helped to assess the evidence in What Works in Conservation 2021, and we are enormously grateful to all of them for their extraordinarily valuable contribution to the project.
The first five editions of What Works in Conservation have been read online, downloaded (for free) or purchased as a book from the publisher’s website over 67,000 times. We hope that this sixth edition will generate thousands more reads, as conservationists around the world work to incorporate the evidence for what works in conservation into their decision-making, with the ultimate goal of enabling more effective conservation for the benefit of biodiversity and society.
The Froglife Trust is extremely pleased to announce that the National Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded it a £249,900 grant for their Discovering Dewponds project. The project will be working with Brighton & Hove City Council and the South Downs National Park Authority to create nine dewponds, working closely with land managers to achieve conservation goals. The project will also be working with local communities to create Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridors, improving local green spaces, parks and school grounds for wildlife. Alongside the habitat work the project will be delivering a wide ranging programme of public engagement including working with local groups to gather wildlife memories.
This project will be addressing the loss of dewponds in the South Downs. It is estimated that 39% of the dewponds in this region have been lost, and many more are no longer visible in the landscape. In addition to reversing these losses the project will raise awareness amongst local residents of the importance of dewponds to wildlife, particularly amphibians. The volunteer training programme will equip volunteers to manage dewponds for wildlife. Froglife will deliver a total of 183 events across the region with over 4,000 residents helping with Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridors and over 600 children benefiting from sessions in schools.
Kathy Wormald, Froglife CEO said: “Thanks to National Lottery players, we will be able to restore and create dewponds currently missing from the landscape. It is a great opportunity for us to improve the biodiversity value of the South Downs, and to raise nature conservation awareness amongst new audiences.”
Councillor Amy Heley, chair of the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee, said: “We’re delighted to be working with the Froglife Trust to further enhance the opportunities for wildlife living in Stanmer and the Downs.
“I’m also extremely pleased to see the joint work we are doing is supporting more volunteering experiences which contribute to people’s health and wellbeing.”
Jeremy Burgess, who leads landscape and biodiversity for water habitats in the National Park, said: “Dew ponds are an important feature in the landscape of the South Downs National Park and many are part of our cultural heritage, with a long history of sheep grazing and droving”.
“The ponds are also key for biodiversity, providing a vital source of water in the dry chalk landscape, habitats for aquatic species and drinking and bathing for a wide range of birds and animals. This wonderful project complements our existing nature recovery work to help restore dew ponds and create a network that will help wildlife, including amphibians, flourish.”
Stuart McLeod, Director England – London & South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, says: “We are delighted to support The Froglife Trust’s Discovering Dewponds project and help them to deliver an ambitious scheme that will create nine dewponds, working closely with land managers to achieve important conservation goals. Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, local communities will be engaged to improve people’s wellbeing, create Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridors, as well as raise awareness around this natural heritage asset.”
In general, Froglife does not encourage the keeping of amphibians (or reptiles) in captivity. Unlike the animals which have become used to close contact with people through the long process of domestication (farm animals and those that we treat as pets, or ‘companion animals’), there are no domesticated species of amphibians. We accept that people, especially children, can become fascinated and enthused by keeping newts, frogs or tadpoles, and that this can develop into a life-long interest that may encourage that person to contribute to the cause of wildlife conservation. However, the needs of amphibians are complex, and too often ignorance of these needs can lead to suffering and needless death in captivity. This can be particularly the case for non-native species when we add the traumas of being captured in the wild, international transportation, and being put on display for sale in a pet shop. Captive breeding of non-native species can alleviate some of this stress, but not the lottery of being cared for by enthusiastic but inexperienced keepers. Overall then, it is preferable for people to learn about amphibians from books, the media, wildlife ponds in private gardens and allotments, visits to wildlife sites where they can be encountered in their native habitats….and zoos.
Froglife recognises well-managed zoos (and aquaria) as exceptions to our policy against keeping amphibians in captivity. As well as having a broadly educational role concerning the world’s wildlife, zoos aspire to be an important component of the worldwide effort to conserve biodiversity. Where a species is threatened with extinction in the wild, it may be possible to take a small population into captivity and encourage them to breed, establishing a reserve population which can be used to re-populate the natural habitat when favourable conditions return. This practice is known as ex situ conservation. In this article, I review progress on ex situ conservation of amphibians and ask how well zoos are meeting their welfare needs.
The first Global Amphibian Assessment (Stuart et al., 2004) concluded that amphibians are the most threatened of the vertebrate classes, with about one third of species facing extinction. One response to this finding was the launch in 2007 of the Amphibian Ark (AArk) by a consortium of the IUCN and the World Association of Zoos and Aquaria. Its strategy is to identify threatened species whose survival chances could be improved by an interventionist programme including in-country and out-of-country captive breeding, allied to efforts to mitigate local threats to the species in the wild (Pavajeau et al., 2008). The AArk Newsletter, published quarterly, on open access, provides information on the progress of AArk programmes worldwide.
A major concern is highlighted by a team from Cologne Zoo (Jacken et al., 2020). They surveyed amphibian holdings in 4519 zoos and aquaria. Only about 7% of known amphibian species (=540 species) are currently kept in zoos. The three classes of amphibians are very unevenly represented, with 17.4% of newts and salamanders (=121 species), 6.1% of frogs and toads (=411 species) and only 3.9% of caecilians (= 8 species). Worse still, more than 10% of holdings are just single specimens; breeding success, even when larger populations are kept, is not high; and three quarters of the species kept are not threatened in the wild. Jacken et al. note that their survey did not include a number of good ex situ conservation programmes being run in university departments and museums, but they concluded overall that zoos are not fulfilling the aims of AArk. There can be several explanations for this situation. Although amphibians might seem highly suitable animals for ex situ conservation (for example, they are small, so do not require a lot of space; and they often have high reproductive outputs, with individuals maturing in a short time), in other ways they are highly problematic. For example, they are mostly nocturnal, so active when visitors are absent. Zoos depend for their incomes on paying customers, and need to prioritise species that people like to see. In addition, adult amphibians need live food, mostly insects, and this requires an efficient production facility. The high reproductive output of amphibians can also be a problem: once tadpoles have metamorphosed, how to keep the hundreds, perhaps thousands of offspring when space may be limited? And then there is disease: the high risks to the entire breeding facility from a chytrid outbreak requires a strict biosecure regime, incompatible with visitors (Pessier, 2008).
If AArk is to become successful, it clearly has to do better in encouraging zoos and other wildlife collections to hold more breeding populations of amphibians, prioritising threatened species (as long as a careful assessment concludes that ex situ conservation is an appropriate solution to the threats these species face). However, there is another issue: the psychological welfare of amphibians. There are several manuals of advice on amphibian husbandry, the most authoritative being Poole and Grow’s (2012) resource guide. This deals with food, water, housing, lighting, disease prevention etc. but, like most such guides does not cover behavioural and cognitive aspects of welfare. It has long been recognised that, in captivity, mammals and birds can suffer psychological distress from the lack of stimulation in their environment. This often manifests in the development of repetitive, sometimes self-damaging behaviours known as stereotypies. To avoid these, good zoo-keepers have devised a wide range of husbandry interventions, collectively known as ‘enrichments’, which provide the animals with interests and activities that promote psychological well-being (Young, 2003).
As well as promoting good mental health, enrichments can have another general purpose. Where animals are kept with ex situ conservation in mind, there is a need to prepare them for release into the wild. Enrichments can provide experience of ‘outside’ behaviours such as foraging, predator avoidance and mate-finding, without which survival in the wild is likely to be very brief.
In amphibians (and reptiles), there has been a tendency to believe that their behaviours are so simple and pre-programmed that enrichments are unnecessary. In a rebuttal of Dodd and Seigel’s (1991) critique of ex situ conservation for amphibians, Bloxam and Tonge (1995) wrote that amphibian ‘behaviours are less dependent on learning and environmental experience than those of birds and mammals…It has always seemed apparent to herpetologists that, with their relatively r-selected life history strategies1 and their low levels of behavioural complexity, amphibians should be ideally suited to short or medium-term conservation strategies’. These claims were accompanied by not a single supporting reference. It is worth contrasting these attitudes with work on fish, like amphibians, cold-blooded vertebrates and with a similar level of brain development. Much research, related to improving the welfare of fish in aquaculture, has shown that learning is important and that fish can suffer from pain and distress (Sneddon, 2015; Sloman, 2019). In addition, enrichments can promote the development of life-skills in fish (Salvanes, 2013). If this is the case for fish, why not for amphibians?
The most detailed discussion of enrichment in amphibians is the review by Michaels et al. (2014), subtitled ‘a neglected topic’. In comparison with the hundreds of papers on enrichment in mammals, Michaels et al. found only 14 relevant primary research papers on amphibians, and I have noted only a small number published since 2014. An issue is that ‘enrichment’ is rarely used in the titles, abstracts or key-words of papers related to husbandry in amphibians, whereas it is commonly used in the mammal literature. This in itself indicates that the amphibian research community has not yet taken the concept of enrichment on board. One sign of progress, however, comes from a comparison of the amphibian chapters in the 1999 and 2010 editions of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare handbook, which recommends good practice for animals kept for use in laboratories. The main laboratory amphibian, since its earlier use in testing for human pregnancies, is still Xenopus laevis. The chapter by Halliday (1999) makes no mention of enrichment, but Tinsley (2010) discusses several aspects of enrichment such as the provision of covers and shelters. In addition to studies on shelters and their behavioural and physiological benefits, Michaels et al. found papers on the benefits of behavioural complexity: ramps, perches and ‘caves’ improved the welfare of bullfrogs. However, papers on the provision of complex habitats for amphibians too rarely investigate which features make a measurable difference in behaviour (for example, McRobert, 2003). In mammals, enrichments which encourage exploration of the enclosure and active foraging for food have been found to have considerable welfare benefits. We tend to think of amphibians as ‘sit-and-wait’ predators, but some species are active foragers. Michaels et al. found a few papers that investigated the welfare effects of varied food delivery techniques. Altering the position of a food dish increased activity levels in dendrobatid frogs, considered as a benefit. This, of course, raises the question: by what criteria do we consider the welfare of a captive amphibian to be improved? The small number of research studies to date means that this key question remains to be fully explored.
This article is intended as an introduction to the topic of welfare and enrichment, with a focus on amphibians. In a future article to appear in Froglife’s magazine Natterchat, I will review studies on reptiles.
Note 1: r-selected species generally have many offspring, limited parental care and short lives, as compared to K-selected species with small numbers of offspring, often prolonged parental care and long lives. Actually, some amphibians have complex parental care provision, small offspring numbers and some have long lives. In any case, it is not clear why Bloxam and Tonge feel there is a link between r-selected life histories and suitability for ex situ conservation.
Written by: Roger Downie Trustee, Froglife; Honorary senior lecturer, University of Glasgow
References
Bloxam and Tonge (1995). Amphibians are suitable candidates for breeding-release programmes. Biodiversity and Conservation 4, 636-644.
Dodd and Seigel (1991). Relocation, repatriation and translocation of amphibians and reptiles: are these conservation strategies that work? Herpetologica 47, 336-350.
Halliday (1991). Amphibians. In: Poole, T., editor. UFAW Handbook, 7th edition volume 2. Ps 90-102.
Jacken et al. (2020). Amphibians in zoos: a global approach on distribution patterns of threatened amphibians in zoological collections. International Zoo Yearbook 54, 146-164.
McRobert (2003). Methodologies for the care, maintenance and breeding of tropical poison frogs. Journal of applied animal welfare science 6, 95-102.
Michaels, Downie and Campbell-Palmer (2014). The importance of enrichment for advancing amphibian welfare and conservation goals: a review of a neglected topic. Amphibian and Reptile Conservation 8, 7-23.
Pavajeau et al. (2008). Amphibian Ark and the Year of the Frog campaign. International Zoo Yearbook 42, 24-29.
Pessier (2008). Management of disease as a threat to amphibian conservation. International Zoo Yearbook 42, 30-39.
Poole and Grow, editors (2012). Amphibian Husbandry Resource Guide. Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Salvanes et al. (2013). Environmental enrichment promotes neural plasticity and cognitive ability in fish. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 280, 1767.
Sloman et al. (2019). Ethical considerations in fish research. Journal of Fish Biology 94, 556-577.
Sneddon (2015). Pain in aquatic animals. Journal of experimental biology 218, 967-976.
Stuart et al. (2004). Status and trends of amphibian declines and extinctions worldwide. Science 306, 1783-1786.
Tinsley (2010). Amphibians, with special reference to Xenopus. In: Hubrecht and Kirkwood, editors. UFAW Handbook 8th edition. Ps 741-760.
Young (2003). Environmental enrichment for captive animals. Blackwell, Oxford.
Acknowledgements
Thanks for feedback on the first draft of this article from Kathy Wormald and Sheila Grundy.
Froglife have a BRAND NEW project: ‘March Forth for Veterans’. This project aims to engage members of the armed forces community in practical conservation work. This includes getting involved in volunteer sessions to ‘re-wild’ their neighbourhoods where they will gain training in habitat management and will work alongside our field worker to build and restore ponds, create wetlands, plant wildflowers, build rockeries and build and install wildlife homes.
In addition, the project will be running a series of tailor-made courses aimed at the armed forces community. These short courses will be of interest to anyone keen on nature and wildlife, but will be of particular benefit to those wishing to start a new career in conservation.
For further information and contact details, click here.
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