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Smooth snake inventory in Sweden: |
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janne Member Joined: 02 Feb 2005 No. of posts: 13  View other posts by janne |
Posted: 27 Oct 2006 I need some good advice on how to start a smooth snake inventory at Stenshuvud national park in SkÕne province in Sweden. The area in question contains a very mixed landscape with cliffs, heath, leaf tree forests and bushy areas. All six swedish reptiles are found here but observations of the smooth snake, typically, are rare. The idea was to use a number of plates/tins in some parts of the park to make it easier to find the snakes. Questions: how many tins is minimum? which is the ideal material? how long does is take before the snakes normally discover the tins? is there any published data on a specialized inventory in England? More info on Stenshuvud: http://www.m.lst.se/skane/index.cfm?page=D02F7C38-9A39- 8B3F-283BC596977C1F49 Kind regards Jan Pr÷jts Janne |
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herpetologic2 Senior Member Joined: 15 Jun 2004 No. of posts: 1369  View other posts by herpetologic2 |
Posted: 27 Oct 2006
Hi Jan A density of tins of around 5 to 10 per hectare would probably be sufficient to locate animals you will need to target your tins to the most suitable habitat. The most ideal material is corrugated iron tin sheeting cut into smaller pieces around 65cm x 70cm roughly. I think that it can take time for smooth snakes to find tins - if the population is small then anything up to many years - the answer is to survey as many places as possible to maximise the chances of finding animals.
There are papers on reptile surveys on the Euroherp site - listed under Coronella Braithwaite, A.C.; Buckley, J.; Corbett, K.F.; Edgar, P.W.; Haslewood, E.S.; Langton, T.E.S.; Whitaker, W.J. (1989) There are a few papers written by C Reading on the smooth snake which may help - apart from that there is no published inventory on the species in England
I am looking for papers on adders on the Islands around Sweden especially any which have shown that adders swim between Islands would you have any of these papers?
Regards
Jon
Vice Chair of ARG UK - self employed consultant - visit ARG UK & Alresford Wildlife |
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janne Member Joined: 02 Feb 2005 No. of posts: 13 View other posts by janne |
Posted: 28 Oct 2006 Thanks. I have little knowledge off adders on the islands, except that there are adders on both Íland and Gotland, together with the two other species. Fairly isolated smaller islands in the Stockholm archipelago also have adders. One article deals with adders on islands: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021- 8790(199102)60%3A1%3C253%3AVISSDA%3E2.0.CO%3B2 -B This one is from Hallands Võder÷ on the west coast: http://md1.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs& collection=ENV&recid=1811440&q=&uid=786848307& setcookie=yes Regards Janne |
- Smooth snake inventory in Sweden |
