Jersey

Team Meet the team in Jersey   Photo gallery Photos of our field work in Jersey   Toadwatch Common toad/Crapaud (Bufo bufo) field campaign

Our home island contains a rich diversity of natural and semi-natural habitats. With a high population density the major threats facing the island come from habitat loss and changes to land management practices on agricultural areas. Durrell supports conservation projects for key species on the island, but also aims to educate and entertain visitors to its wildlife park where much of our work is showcased.

Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands of the coast of Normandy in France, and is officially a British Crown Dependency. Despite its small size of 118km², it has a wide diversity of habitats from coastal cliffs, heathlands and dunes, to marshes and wooded inland valleys. The varied coastline includes extensive areas intertidal zone and offshore reef included as Ramsar sites of international importance for their biodiversity. Over 100 species of bird have been recorded breeding and all animal and plant groups show a European influence and often differ widely from the UK.

Jersey has been heavily modified for agriculture over many centuries and few truly natural areas exist. Extensive use of land in recent years for housing development has further reduced available habitat and many native species only exist through the efforts of conservationists. In recent years the reduction of marginal farming in areas such as Island’s north coast cliff tops has resulted in the development of very poor habitat and a loss of biodiversity.

Durrell in Jersey

For many years Durrell has worked closely with the government of Jersey (The States of Jersey) on the conservation of native species including amphibians, reptiles and birds. At the same time we support education programmes for children in all levels of school about the natural world and conservation, and use our wildlife park to showcase our global efforts to protect and restore biodiversity.

Agile frogs
The agile frog (Rana dalmatina) is native to Jersey and does not occur elsewhere in the British Isles. Normally this frog is found in woodlands and wet meadows and will breed in ponds that are found close to woodlands. Suffering from a long term decline caused primarily by habitat loss and agricultural pollution, the species became isolated to only one remaining location on the island by the late 1980’s.

Efforts to protect this species began in 1980’s with a joint project between the States of Jersey Environment Division, Durrell and the Société Jersiaise Zoology Section, which focused on a headstarting programme for the frogs coupled with captive breeding and habitat management. Durrell has led ‘headstarting’ for the frog, which is where we rear clumps of spawn collected from the wild. Normally in the wild, mortality of tadpoles is very high and so we can maximise the number of animals that it through this vulnerable stage of their lives. After about four months in captivity the well-developed tadpoles are released back into the wild. Before being released, each individual is marked with a visible marker so that we can evaluate the success of our head-starting programme. The headstarting programme has been a major success and the rapid increase in the number of clumps found in the wild points towards a marked increase in frogs over the years.

Common toads
On Jersey the European common toad (Bufo bufo) is known locally as the Crapaud and occupies a somewhat iconic status. Once a familiar sight in the ponds and waterways of the island, it has been declining and a campaign was launched in 2005 with the States of Jersey and the Jersey Amphibian and Reptile Group called Toadwatch to gain a better understanding of the toad’s distribution and raise awareness.

Find out more about the Toadwatch campaign »

Farmland bird monitoring
As with mainy areas in Europe, Jersey’s farmland birds have been declining for a long time, with the cirl bunting (Emberiza cirlus) and yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) going locally extinct. In 2005 a programme of intensive bird monitoring was initiated to track changes in the population size of all farmland and marginal habitat birds in Jersey. Starting with 5 sites in 2005, this programme has expanded to 10 sites around the island and is a partnership with the States of Jersey and the Societe Jersiaise. One of the first results from the survey was a programme of annual fencing of skylark nesting areas at La Blanche Banques in the breeding season to protect their nests from being trampled.

Restoration of Jersey’s coastland habitats
Much of the Jersey’s coastland habitat was once actively managed either through grazing, cutting or fires, which created low level vegetation suitable for many bird species. However the last half of the Twentieth Century saw the abandonment of these areas, with the result that bracken, gorse and scrub vegetation have come to dominate most coastal cliffs and adjacent lands, particularly on the north coast, where the slopes are steep and mechanical management of this habitat is difficult or impossible. Several bird species associated with this habitat have either died out completely locally or have declined to very low levels.

Durrell, in partnership with the States of Jersey and the National Trust for Jersey initiated a project to restore areas of coastal land in the north and south west of Jersey. The project aims to return habitat to a condition suitable to encourage increasing populations of associated birds and the return of those species that have died out such as cirl bunting and yellowhammer. Methods for the returning these birds through translocation or captive breeding will be investigated when habitat has been restored. The red-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) which died out in Jersey around 1900 will be returned to the Island as part of this project and Durrell established a breeding programme for this species in 2010.

Threatened plants
Durrell is also supporting the States of Jersey to restore many threatened native plants, such as wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca), Jersey pink (Dianthus gallicus) and Jersey fern (Anogramma leptophylla).  Our Landscape Team use their expertise to propagate these plants which are then put planted across the island and monitored by the States Environment and Planning Department.

Consultancy
Durrell has considerable in-house expertise across many animal and plant groups and regularly undertakes surveys and provides reports for local bodies especially during planning applications. In recent years Durrell has written reports on the status of the Atlantic puffin in Jersey and surveyed specific sites for songbirds, green lizard (Lacerta bilineata), slow worm (Anguis fragilis), heath grasshopper (Chorthippus vagans), common toad, small mammals and protected plants.

Image copyrights: (listed from top to bottom)

• Header image - Yellowhammer Credit Romano de Costa