Destructive searches involve capturing reptiles by digging up their habitat. According to best practice guidelines produced by HGBI (now ARG UK) in 1998:
"The technique is a last resort and requires very careful specialist attention as it is not always possible to prevent the occasional death or injury of a proportion of animals dug up through cutting or crushing".
Since is is unlawful to deliberately kill or injure reptiles, I would question the whole legality of the methodology. In recent years, Kent Reptile and Amphibian Group has been made aware of consultancies who undertake destructive searches on a regular basis. It is not at all unusual for such work to be undertaken during late autumn, when animals have started to prepare for hibernation. Setting aside the legal aspects of the work, is it actually ethical to disturb hibernating reptiles? What do consultants do with animals that they have dug up? Presumably they either keep them in captivity until the spring or release them on previously prepared 'receptor sites'? Are animals released so late in the season likely to survive the winter?
I remember a lady in Harrietsham who told me about a very unpleasant sight she witnessed. Apparently consultants had undertaken a destructive search during the winter and released large numbers of slow-worms into a so-called artificial hibernaculum. Unfortunately it was much too cold for the slow-worms and a few days after the release the lady was walking her dog and saw tens of dead animals strewn around the ground by the hibernaculum.
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