Snakes settling in after big move

24,000 adders, common lizards and other species moved from oil refinery site to reserves to make way for London Gateway They had lived peacefully in their tens of thousands on an old refinery site in Essex. Now after what is thought to be the UK’s biggest artificial movement of animals, 24,000 adders, grass snakes, common lizards and slow worms are settling well into new homes 140 miles away. The reptiles were transported from the east of England to reserves in Wiltshire to make way for the £1.5bn London Gateway container port and logistics park. Since 1998 the creatures have been captured by hand and moved in vans – early in the morning so they did not dry out – around the M25 and down the M4 before being released into their new homes. The reserves in Wiltshire have now been declared full and this year the relatively few remaining reptiles at the Essex site will be rehoused closer to another reserve closer to home. Marcus Pearson, environmental manager for DP World, said the move seemed to have been successful. Reptiles that had been moved and then recaptured to check their wellbeing seemed healthy and doing well in their new home. Construction is under way at London Gateway, 25 miles to the east of central London. Once complete the development will allow the world’s biggest container ships to berth close to the capital. But one of the challenges the developers faced was rehousing the animals that had moved on to the site after an oil refinery ceased operating in 1999. Homes were found nearby for the carefully protected great crested newts. But no new local habitat could be found for the reptiles so the decision was taken to move them to reserves managed by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust . DP World also bought a chunk of land to link areas owned by the trust. It has moved 290 adders, 400 grass snakes, 17,000 common lizards and 6,000 slow worms. Pearson said finding a new home was tricky because they could not be moved to places where they were already large populations of a particular creature. The Wiltshire reserves are now judged to be full and the remaining reptiles found on the Gateway site this year will be moved to the RSPB reserve, West Canvey Marsh . Wildlife Animals Steven Morris guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 21, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.