Worrying declines in adder populations

Eleven years of monitoring adder populations has provided evidence of what many ecologists have sensed for a long time - that one of our iconic reptiles, the adder is in serious decline. 

The study showed that 90% of adder populations were small and declining with only 10 having large populations that were healthy.  Worryingly, there is a danger that in 10-20 years, the adder populations would become increasingly fragmented and isolated and this could lead to a serious risk of extinction.

The risks to adders are multiple - they are in danger from mechanical cutting of vegetation and overgrazing which reduced the cover they need.  Adders often hibernate together and are site-faithful, returning to the same hibernation site year after year - this can make them vulnerable to the loss of such sites and potentially the loss of a whole adder population at the same time.

In my view, there is an urgent need to increase the protection conferred to adders, which at the moment receive limited protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

The monitoring study was undertaken by the Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK (ARG UK) through the ‘Make the Adder Count’ project, a citizen science survey to monitor adder populations across the UK, and published in association with Reading University. 
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The full research article, published with open access by the British Herpetological Society, can be found at https://www.thebhs.org/publications/the-herpetological-journal/volume-29-number-1-january-2019