My Vanishing World

Endangered Species in a Vanishing World

Llandaff Weir (Photo: Steve Andrews)

Throughout my life I have been very sadly watching the natural world being destroyed bit by bit, pond by pond, forest by forest, field by field, habitat by habitat. Most of this is done in the name of ‘development’ and ‘progress’ and even in the name of safety, e.g. when trees are felled for being potentially dangerous and ponds are drained because a child could fall in and drown. These are the sort of reasons given for destroying part of the natural world, and each part that is destroyed was the home for many species of animal and plant.

As a child and teenager who delighted in the wonders of nature I was discovering, I never dreamed that once common birds, animals, insects, fish, reptiles, amphibians and wild flowers would become rare or even endangered species. But this has happened. Here in the UK, the decline in wildlife is truly alarming.

Small Tortoiseshell, a once common butterfly (Photo: Public Domain) 

The honeybee is having problems all over the world, and the new term “colony collapse disorder” is in use to describe their decline. Once common butterflies, like the small tortoiseshell are no longer frequently seen. The numbers of the house-sparrow and starling have dropped drastically. Both these birds used to be seen all over cities and towns and were regular visitors to most gardens but not now. The common lizard isn’t common. Ask yourself this: when did you last see one? Perhaps you have never seen one! The hedgehog, which used to be often seen in gardens, and often seen as a victim of road-kill is not even seen dead on our roads. There are so few hedgehogs about they are not there to get killed by traffic any more. The European eel that I remember seeing in their millions as elvers coming up rivers and streams each year is now listed as a critically endangered species.

Habitat Destruction

Habitat destruction is a massive part of the problem, and it doesn’t have to be tropical rainforest that we need to worry about, although of course the destruction of our jungles is a very alarming threat to the world’s wildlife and ecosystems. Natural environments much closer to home are continuing to be destroyed.

Llandaff Weir

Where elvers once climbed (Photo: Steve Andrews)

In Llandaff and Fairwater, in Cardiff, where I was brought up, there used to be many places where you could find newts, frogs and toads. In other words, there were a number of ponds available for them to breed in. I remember a large pond behind what was then Waterhall School in Fairwater but that has long gone. Right next to Llandaff Village is the River Taff and Llandaff Weir. When I was a boy there were two ponds on the river bank that supported newts, frogs and toads. There were also sticklebacks, as well as various pond snails, water beetles and dragonflies and damselflies that called these ponds their home. Both ponds were destroyed many years ago. The ground was bulldozed flat or made into embankment. Where did all the amphibians go when they returned in spring to find their breeding pools gone?

Elvers
I went along to Llandaff Weir recently with my friend Roger and we were looking at where the ponds used to be and also at the river and the weir. I remember when the elvers used to leave the water and slither their way up the wet concrete and stonework at the edge of the weir. There used to be so many that it was easy to fill a bucket by putting one under the mass of wriggling elvers and dislodging them into it. Every rock in the river would have an elver or elvers under it. This was normal. Now this species is in such small numbers it is listed as critically endangered, as already pointed out.

As a  matter of interest, the River Taff was terribly polluted when I used to go there as a boy back in the early 1960s. The water was black with coal dust from the mines up the Valleys, it foamed with detergents washed down in drains and the mud was also black and had an awful stench. No water plants would grow in the river. Amazingly though, there were minnows, bullheads, stone loaches, sticklebacks, and roach, all to be easily found doing surprisingly well at that time. The minnows and bullheads were the biggest I have ever seen, and this was really surprising because both these fish like clean well aerated water. I think the reason the fish thrived despite the terrible pollution was because of the vast numbers of tubifex worms that lived in the mud.  I used to carry this mud home and put it in a container and let it dry out. The pink or red worms would form into tangled balls as the mud dried out. This made them easy to remove, and after washing them they were ideal live food for the many tropical fish I used to keep.

I don’t know what fish live in the cleaner River Taff as it is today, although I do know that salmon and sea-trout can be seen jumping at Blackweir which is another weir a mile or so downstream. The river has improved in many ways but at the same time it has lost a lot. It has lost at least two ponds that were once on its riverbanks.

This story illustrates well the reason why it makes a great contribution to wildlife conservation if you have a garden pond. The more garden pools there are the better because they can serve as a partial replacement for the ponds that have been destroyed.

Why Tenerife is a paradise for naturalists

Tenerife is a naturalist’s dream

Tenerife forested mountains

Tenerife is a popular island in the Canary Islands for tourists who spend their holidays there but it is also every naturalist’s dream. With its forests, mountains, semi-desert areas, cliffs, sand dunes and range of beaches there is a real diversity of habitats. There are so many types of countryside on the island, and also a range of very different microclimates. This is why so many forms of flora and fauna can be found there, both endemic species and introduced and naturalised plants and animals.

Laurel Pigeon (Photo: DrPhilipLehmann)

There are two main sorts of forests: pine forest and ancient evergreen laurel forest. The latter of these is very important because the patches of this type of woodland that still stand on Tenerife and some of the other Canary Islands are some of the only remaining stretches of this form of forest in the world. Rare birds, such as the laurel pigeon (Columba junoniae) and endemic plants like the Canary Islands foxglove (Isoplexis canariensis) can be found in the laurel forests.

Viper's Bugloss species

Red Bugloss

Tenerife has a very great range of species in the Echium genus of viper’s bugloss. The most spectacular species is the red bugloss or Teide bugloss (Echium wildpretii), which as its name suggests has red flowers that form in tall spikes, and it is found growing high on Mt Teide where there is a very extreme habitat. Because it is so high the sunlight is very strong but it gets very cold at night. The ground is dry and rocky and it looks like another planet in the Tenerife highlands.
There is a shortage of naturally occurring freshwater in Tenerife because it drains quickly into the ground and down to the sea after it rains but this has not prevented a fascinating selection of freshwater creatures and water birds being found on the island. Many species of dragonfly, two species of frog and the mosquito fish (Gambusia affinis) mainly depend on the reservoirs and irrigation tanks used by farmers for collecting water for their crops. The frogs, by the way, are the Mediterranean tree-frog (Hyla meridionalis), and the Iberian water frog (Rana perezii). In the village of Erjos, however, there are some large ponds that formed after the topsoil was removed many years ago. These pools attracted all sorts of wildlife and make a wonderful area for appreciating nature and walking in the surrounding hills and forests. 

Grey Heron

The grey heron (Ardea cinerea) is a bird that uses natural and artificial freshwater pools to search for fish and frogs and is often seen on the island. It will also take goldfish from ornamental ponds in parks and gardens.

Tenerife has lizard species, two types of gecko and a skink but no snakes, despite having excellent habitats for these reptiles.

Monarch butterfly

There are many interesting insects to be found on the island. A butterfly to look out for is the monarch (Danaus plexippus). It was able to colonise the Canary Islands because the tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is often grown in gardens, flower borders and parks. This large and beautiful butterfly can be seen flying all year round and is most often seen in cities, towns and resorts where its caterpillar’s food-plant grows in gardens. The massive and strange looking death’s head hawk moth and its larva are often found on Tenerife. This moth gets its name due to the skull-like marking on its thorax. The fact that it can squeak too has added to its weirdness and has made it the subject of various superstitions. The caterpillars are very big and feed mostly on thorn-apple (Datura stramonium), which is a very common weed on the island, and also on the shrub Lantana (Lantana camara).  There are also some species of praying mantis that can be found on Tenerife.

Mantis

Botanists will be excited by the very large number of succulents that grow wild on Tenerife. There are many endemic species of Aeonium and Euphorbia. The Canary Island spurge (Euphorbia canariensis) looks more like a cactus and grows in large clumps on arid and rocky ground around the island.

Look out too for the prehistoric-looking dragon trees (Dracaena draco), which can still be found occasionally growing wild but are very rare. They are much more commonly seen in parks and gardens around Tenerife, and there is the famous “Drago Milenario,” said to be 1,000-years-old that is in its own park in Icod de los Vinos.

If you are interested in wildlife you will find plenty to interest you wherever you are on the island.

Habitat destruction is a very serious threat to the survival of many species

What local habitats have you seen destroyed? 

If, like me, you are very concerned about the vanishing wildlife around the world and the increasing threats to so many species of flora and fauna, you will know that habitat destruction is one of the main threats that plants and animals face.  I expect there are places you can remember that have been destroyed by housing developments, urban expansion, new roads, and other forms of 'progress'. What local wildlife habitats can you recall that are no longer there? 

Common Lizard (Photo: S Rae)

One location in Fairwater, Cardiff, I spent a lot of time in as boy I used to call the “Coal Yard.” It was actually an abandoned railway siding on the other side of the railway line that ran parallel to the lane that backed onto the house where I lived with my family.  High steel railings blocked access to it from a field that was on one side and a road with another fence of metal railings was at its bottom. The only easy way in was going over the railway bank and railway line. This left the Coal Yard like a mini nature reserve where few people ever went.

Female Wall Brown (Photo: Jorg Hempel)

I used to cross the railway to get there and would discover all sorts of flowers and creatures living in the Coal Yard, including common lizards (Zootoca vivipara), small heath (Coenonympha pamphilus), common blue (Polyommatus icarus) and wall brown (Lasiommata megera) butterflies, and rest harrow (Ononis spinosa) and bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) wild flowers. All were common enough species then, though the wall brown is one of the British butterflies that has suffered an alarming decline.

Rest Harrow (Photo: Public Domain)

For many people, the Coal Yard was just some waste ground at the side of a railway line but for me it was a wildlife habitat that has been destroyed. To the creatures and plants that were there it was home. To a property developer it was somewhere houses could be built and money to be made. Nowadays it is the site of blocks of flats and neatly tended lawns.

Ponds at Llandaff Weir

A pair of Common Toads (Photo: Public Domain)

There were two ponds on the banks of Llandaff Weir that were once home to many forms of aquatic wildlife, including common frogs (Rana temporia), common toads (Bufo bufo) and the common newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) and palmate newt (Lissotriton helveticus). The frogs and toads bred in the larger of the ponds, which was also home to various dragonfly and damselflies, water snails, water beetles, and the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus).

Sticklebacks (Photo Public Domain)

I use the past tense because these ponds were destroyed when the bank of the river was bulldozed flat. I cannot be sure of the reason given in the local press for this but I seem to remember it was supposedly to improve the bank with a view to a new pathway or road that was planned. All I knew for sure was that these two pools were where I used to find all the creatures mentioned. It was there home. It had been destroyed and it saddened me. I remember wondering where all the amphibians would go when they returned in spring to their breeding places to find they had gone. There was no freshwater suitable left, only the river which was too fast and polluted for the frogs, toads and newts. I have often wondered where do amphibians go when they find a place they have known is no longer there? What goes through their little minds?

Now, it can be said, that all the species I have mentioned were common species, but that is not the point. The problem is, and it is a big problem, is that the more habitats like these, that get destroyed, the less places the wildlife can live.

Both these locations, the Coal Yard and Llandaff Weir, were within a short distance of each other, probably about a mile. I point this out to show how wildlife habitat destruction is cumulative. That is just two examples of what has gone from where I lived as a boy. Multiply this sort of destruction all over the country and you have a main reason that many types of wildlife are endangered.

This is why it is so important that nature reserves are set up and maintained and that, if we have gardens, that we leave plenty of room for wildlife. A garden pond can be just what a toad, frog or newt needs for its survival.

Here is a good example of a threatened wildlife habitat so please sign the petition!

The Iberian Water Frog or Perez’s Frog is not the Iberian frog

Pelophylax perezi. Photo by David Perez

The Iberian water frog lives in Iberia (Spain and Portugal) as its name suggests but it is also known as Perez’s frog (Pelophylax perezi) and the Iberian green frog. Its scientific name used to be Rana perezi, and this is still used by many zoologists and naturalists. 

 It needs to be distinguished from the Iberian frog (Rana iberica), which also lives in Spain and Portugal but unlike the Iberian water frog which is very common and widely distributed, the Iberian frog is now very rare and limited by the number of locations it still survives in. 

The Iberian water frog’s key to success is that it isn’t fussy about its habitat and is found in ponds, lakes, reservoirs, rivers, marshes, and just about anywhere there is freshwater. It is often found breeding in garden ponds and also in the large water tank reservoirs made for farm irrigation.

It also lives in southern France and has been successfully introduced into Tenerife and the Canary Islands, the Azores and Madeira, as well as the Balearic Islands. It is also reported from a couple of sites in the UK where it is surviving.

The Iberian waterfrog is usually some shade of green as an overall colour but sometimes blueish specimens are found. These frogs often have a yellowish line down their backs.

Juvenile Iberian water frog. Photo by Steve Andrews

The Iberian water frog is a large species with females being bigger than the males.  The males croak loudly and congregate in large numbers in the breeding season. They can be territorial and will fight. 

The Iberian water frog is also known to resort to cannibalism at times and will eat its own tadpoles and smaller frogs.

The Iberian waterfrog, as its name suggests, spends most of its time in the water or very near it. It likes to bask in the sun at the edges of ponds or on lily-pads or anything else it can haul its body out onto.

 

Iberian Water Frogs. Quinta do Lago, Algarve, Portugal. 07/05/2102

  The Iberian Frog 

Rana iberica. Photo by Luis Fernández García

The Iberian frog favours mountainous regions and needs rivers, streams, ponds and lakes in these areas. It is also found in some lowland parts but is seriously declining in numbers.

  It looks similar to the Common frog (R.temporaria) and shares its habitat with this species in some places. It can grow to about 7 cm (2.8 in) in length but a more usual size is 5 cm (2.0 in).

The Iberian frog is having problems mainly due to habitat loss caused by deforestation and land development and is also threatened by introduced and naturalised predatory species including the American mink (Neovison vison). Climate Change is also said to be taking its toll on this species of frog and its official Conservation Status is “Near Threatened.”

SAVE THE FROGS 

Sadly it's not just the Iberian frog that is declining in numbers and in danger, because worldwide many species of frog, toad, salamander and newt are in serious trouble too. Water pollution, pesticides, herbicides, habitat destruction, the danger from traffic on roads, competition with other species, disease and Climate Change are all contributing to this, and many types are actually endangered to the point of facing extinction.

Dr Kerry Kriger has set up the first ever charity devoted to saving frogs and amphibians. Find out what you can do to help Save The Frogs here! 

 

 

Help frogs, toads and newts with a garden pond

A pair of Common Frogs 

Do you like frogs? I do and have done since I was a little boy. In my childhood days, tadpoles were a common sight in ponds in parks, gardens and in fields in the countryside but sadly that is not the case today.

Most amphibians are presently under threat with fast declining populations. Habitat loss, pollution, pesticides and herbicides, Climate Change, deaths caused by traffic on roads, and the chytrid fungus are all taking a heavy toll. So we all need to do what we can to help in the conservation of frogs, toads, newts and salamanders.

Most amphibians need water to breed in. They gather in ponds, lakes, canals and wherever they can find enough freshwater suitable for their needs. This means that if you have a garden then you can make a significant contribution in helping the local populations of frogs, toads and newts by having a garden pond.

Ely

When I lived on the Ely estate in Cardiff I made a pond using an old bath that someone had thrown away. It had been thrown out and into a rubbish skip in the street I lived in but I saw a use for it so salvaged it. I dug a big enough hole in the lawn area of my back garden and put the bath in place. I got a plug to stop water getting out, filled it up, added some large rocks so that anything that fell in could climb back out, and got some water plants from a local pond.

Common Frogs

Within just a few years I had a thriving colony of Common Frogs (Rana temporia) and Palmate Newts (Lissotriton helveticus) using the home I had given them as a place to breed. It was wonderful seeing them gather there each spring. I know my efforts inspired others to have a go too because as many as four families in Ely that I know and that knew about my conservation efforts, now have ponds in their back gardens, all of which have frogs and newts breeding in them.

Pond in my friend Jane's garden

If I could achieve this with just an old bathtub, think what can be done with a proper pond! You can buy ready-made pools from garden centres or create a pond using waterproof sheeting to line it.  The bigger the pond you make the better it is for attracting and supporting amphibian species.  


Great Crested Newt
In the UK, the very rare and endangered Great Crested Newt (Triturus cristatus) only uses very big ponds or lakes, and the Common Toad (Bufo bufo) also likes larger sources of freshwater to breed in.

Having a pond in your back garden is likely to attract pretty Dragonfly species as well. The larvae or nymphs of these insects are predators and will eat tadpoles and baby newts but no need to worry about that. There will probably be too many this is nature’s way of keeping the balance.

A pond becomes a place that will provide a focal point in your garden and is a real help in the conservation of amphibians and other aquatic and semi-aquatic wildlife. Why not get a good book on Backyard Wildlife and find out what else you can do to create you very own nature reserve?

Find out how to build a frog pond here at the Save the Frogs website. 


Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.