Award winning homes for Snakes in Somerset
Mendip Hills AONB Service wins national award for Adder project
The Mendip Hills AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) Service announced that their project to build new homes for adders won the Bowland Award at the National AONB Conference.
The prestigious award recognises outstanding contributions to the work of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The conference this year was in Bath and included a field trip to see one of the new adder homes, called hibernaculas.
The adder hibernaculum project resulted in 15 new over-wintering sites for the reptiles being built across the Mendip Hills.
Adders are Britain’s only venomous snake and are considered a ‘threatened’ species. This is one of the reasons the Mendip Hills AONB Service has chosen it as one of the ‘champion species’ of the area to focus conservation work on.
Nathan Orr, Mendip Hills AONB Nature Recovery Ranger, said, ‘We’ve been able to draw lots of people in to the project, increasing their awareness of how vulnerable these snakes are. We’ve had AONB volunteers involved, volunteers from the National Trust, Avon Wildlife Trust and Butterfly Conservation Trust plus lots of landowners who have housed the hibernacula; they all deserve special thanks and a share in this award.’
The hibernaculum project was funded through a grant from Natural England’s Species Recovery Fund.
The organisation have even created a guide on how you can build your own Hibernaculum at home!