The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has announced that neonicotinoid pesticides are dangerous to honey bees, and should not be used on crops that are attractive to them. The Parliament UK website quoted the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, Joan Walley MP, as saying:
According to a press release by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), around 146 beavers are now established in about 40 family groups in the Tayside region of Scotland. They originated from accidental escapes or deliberate releases around 2006.
Ireland's National Biodiversity Data Centre has announced a new red list of Irish maflies, produced in conjunction with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Northern Ireland Environment Agency. It assessed threats to all 33 species of Irish mayflies. Six are categorised as under threat of extinction, and two are near threatened.
So here we are with yet another case of unexpected great crested newts (UXGCNs) turning up on a development site, far too late in the day, and leaving all concerned bemused and wondering where to point the finger.
CGO Ecology has been awarded a contract by Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) to pilot a revised Common Standards Monitoring (CSM) methodology for herpetofauna interest features on English SSSIs. The project runs from January to March 2013, and will involve visits to 17 SSSIs and 9 SACs across England.
Ok so it's a rhetorical question, but it raises an important point: there are undoubtedly some alien invasives here that we don't know about yet. Non-native invasive species are here, and here to stay; so we need to be pragmatic about how to deal with them.
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has published a series of 'average population density' maps on its website, showing the number of individuals per square kilometre for 49 common species of bird.
According to web sources, Richard Benyon MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Natural Environment, Water and Rural Affairs has communicated the Government's intention to legislate against the sale of 'blacklisted' non-native invasive species. This follows a lengthy consultation period.
This is the Australian landhopper or woodhopper Arcitalitrus dorrieni (an amphipod crustacean). It is not native to the UK, but has become increasingly established over the last century or so. It lives in deciduous or mixed leaf litter, and can be confused with native springtails. There are no native terrestrial amphipods in Britain; only aquatic species such as Gammarus pulex.
We're engaged in lots of non-marine mollusc work at the moment; some of it relating to professional projects; some of it simply in the name of voluntary biological recording. Winter is a time for compiling all those species records collected throughout the year, and sending them off to the relevant Local Records Centres (LRCs).