Newt what we expected!

With hotels popping up all over the place, Watergrasshill Industrial Park has decided to join the trend by creating its very own resort…for frogs and newts.

The new man-made habitats were built after development of land within the park inadvertently attracted a wide variety of wildlife.

In 2019, ecologists with Limosa Environmental and Triturus Environmental were involved in pre-planning ecological surveys for the development of lands inside Watergrasshill Industrial Park.

Over time, the site’s surface water lagoon, man-made to store surface and storm water, began to attract wildlife and became rich in wildflowers, birds, insects, mammals and amphibians.

However, within the development footprint, a small area of wetland habitat had also developed over time from the ponding of surface water.

This area soon attracted large numbers of common frogs and smooth newts, both of which are protected species.

Mitigation was therefore needed, and a decision was made to create new habitats in the form of a pond, scrapes and two newt hotels (hibernacula).

With the help of site construction staff, Ross Macklin of Triturus Environmental placed the new habitats near the existing lagoon creating one larger wetland habitat which will be conserved as a biodiversity area.

In early March this year, the team spent a day capturing and moving frogs and frog spawn to their new homes under licence to the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS).

Ecologist Ross Macklin said: “Watergrasshill Community Association showed a great interest in the project from the start and were very supportive of the measures to enhance biodiversity at the site.”

Local resident and community group member Barry Curtin added: “The location of the works provides connectivity of wildlife corridors in this high value natural environment area at the top end of the Buttlerstown River which also acts as an important aquifer which supplies drinking water for thousands of people. So, the positive effects of this work goes further than just the site by providing an important buffer zone.”

The smooth newt and common frog are both amphibians which can often be found breeding in ponds during the spring.

According to wildlifetrusts.org, the common frog often inhabits garden ponds where it lays its eggs in large rafts of spawn.