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For developments where the habitat loss will be so significant that the carrying capacity of the land will be significantly reduced and unable to support the reptile population, reptiles will need to be moved from the site prior to works.
The preceeding population survey has given the estimate of the size of the population and this is used to establish a receptor site of sufficent carrying capacity. This is done by performing presence or absence and if needed population surveys at the receptor site.
The population estimate also provides a rough guide to how long it might take to trap out the reptiles from the development site.
To prevent reptiles invading the development site from the surounding areas a temporary reptile proof barrier is introduced surrounding the site prior to trap out.
Trap out is conducted in a similar way to the survey process except this time the animals are carefuly caught and released on to the receptor site.
In order to speed up the rate of trap out the habitat can be carefully reduced using our specially modified power scyth. This allows the area to be "soft" fenced in to smaller parcels, increasing refugia density.
Once the catch rate has fallen to a repeatable zero over a number of catch days the site is then carefully destroyed, increasing the density of the refugia sheets and corralling any animals which have been missed during the trap out period until all the habitat is destroyed.
