Europe

European Congress of Herpetology By Jim Foster - Conservation Director

ARC’s Conservation Director, Jim Foster reports on our attendance at this important conference.

In September 2019 Dr John Wilkinson and I represented ARC at the 20th European Congress of Herpetology in Milan, organised by the SEH (Societas Europaea Herpetologica). This conference happens every two years and is a chance for those working on reptiles and amphibians to get together and share their research; whilst mainly aimed at an academic audience, there is a growing interest in conservation issues at the conference. ARC attends these conferences to help ensure that our work is grounded in good conservation evidence, and to communicate our own projects. We are also involved in business meetings that coincide with the conference –in this case a Board Meeting of Reptile and Amphibian Conservation Europe, and an SEH Conservation Committee meeting.

For the main conference, we were co-authors on a poster outlining work on “Important Herpetofauna Areas”, a project to map the key places in Europe of importance for reptiles and amphibians, on which we collaborate with European partners including RAVON in the Netherlands. I gave a presentation on ARC’s work on pool frog reintroductions, highlighting the progress and challenges we have faced when undertaking translocations to re-establish this species in the UK.

As always, the conference proved to be a great place to learn about new discoveries and projects

happening across Europe. Highlights included an initiative to produce new assessment methods for pesticides that will take into account the particular issues facing reptiles and amphibians. A session on agriculture showcased new research into how species including sand lizard and common toad use farmed landscapes. Several talks highlighted the risks posed by introduced non-native species, especially crayfish, which are now a serious decline factor for some European newts, as well as the advancing threats posed by disease. Learning from the conference is being factored into ARC’s work on herpetofauna in the UK.

Europe