MONITORING A BREEDING POPULATION OF CRESTED NEWTS (TRITURUS-CRISTATUS) IN A HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

A housing estate was built immediately adjacent to two water bodies ut ilized by crested newts (Triturus cristatus). Conservation management, particularly pond deepening and fish removal, was undertaken during a nd after development. This paper describes a monitoring study to deter mine the success of the operation. Counting adults at night in the bre eding season indicated that numbers were at least maintained over a te n year period. Larval counts were made in each of the seven years afte r the houses were constructed, and more than half of the larvae were n etted in one year, 1991. In the autumn of 1990 both ponds were totally dry, and success in 1991 may have been associated with absence of fis h and low numbers of invertebrate predators. The overall conclusion wa s that it is possible to conserve crested newts satisfactorily in such a situation.