(Diversion of the day)
This morning there was a piece on Farming Today about vanishing ponds and vanishing toads and a report from The Wildlife Trusts, and how if we did not do EXACTLY as told NOW there will be a world ending catastrophe next Tuesday etc...
In my area we have dozens of balancing ponds as part of SUDS systems on new housing estates. On a 10 acre 120 house estate, they would give over about half an acre to such features, and half an acre to an acre to amenity land.
I was wondering whether such ponds and the wildlife they host are counted, and whether they are actually of any benefit to eg our toads?
Both our local County Wildlife trusts are not aware of any work that has been done, and had not considered these of being of interest to them. It seems to be a bit of a gap. I think that local authorities may well wash their hands of it all once built, rather than spend money monitoring,
Does anybody know of any work that has been done?
Ferdinand