Amphibian virus alert

[pipscariad]

I helped out on my daughters school trip yesterday, to the National Botanic Garden of Wales, and whilst there they had a pond dipping activity. The chap who took them for it was telling us that there is a new virus about that is attacking amphibians, and so there are strict rules now on moving any amphibian, for example, if tadpoles are taken out of a pond, they must go back into the same pond that they came from. Same applies to adults too.

Just thought it was worth a mention on here, in case anyone was thinking of rehoming or moving any toads, newts etc., for any reason. I hadn't heard of it up to now (but then I do live in cloud cuckoo land to a certain extent, having no telly, no daily paper and only listening to the radio now and again...). Worth knowing about for next years frogspawn season anyway - lets hope it doesn't do too much damage.

[rana]

This is a perennial issue in response to the apparent decline of amphibians and the general advice has been to refrain from moving the creatures or spawn from one place to another to prevent the potential spread of disease. There are no 'rules' as such apart from the protection of newts whereby it is prohibited to sell them.