page_title: Northern crested newt
section_title: Threats and conservation
hierarchical_section_title: Northern crested newt / Threats and conservation
caption_attribution_description: English: Collecting Crested Newts beside Trotshill Manor. The whole perimeter of this small site for new houses was fitted with this plastic fence. Apparently a condition of the redevelopment was that these rare newts were collected and relocated. To this end a bucket was sunk to ground level every few yards around the whole site and inspected every day for newts.
context_page_description: The northern crested newt, great crested newt or warty newt is a newt species native to Great Britain, northern and central continental Europe and parts of Western Siberia. It is a large newt, with females growing up to 16 cm long. Its back and sides are dark brown, while the belly is yellow to orange with dark blotches. Males develop a conspicuous jagged crest on their back and tail during the breeding season.
  The northern crested newt spends most of the year on land, mainly in forested areas in lowlands. It moves to aquatic breeding sites, mainly larger fish-free ponds, in spring. Males court females with a ritualised display and deposit a spermatophore on the ground, which the female then picks up with her cloaca. After fertilisation, a female lays around 200 eggs, folding them into water plants. The larvae develop over two to four months before metamorphosing into terrestrial juveniles. Both larvae and land-dwelling newts mainly feed on different invertebrates.
  Several of its former subspecies are now recognised as separate species in the genus Triturus. The northern crested newt sometimes forms hybrids with some of its relatives, including the marbled newt.
context_section_description: The northern crested newt is listed as species of Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, but populations are declining. It is rare in some parts of its range and listed in several national red lists.
  The major reason for decline is habitat destruction through urban and agricultural development, affecting the aquatic breeding sites as well as the land habitats. Their limited dispersal makes the newts especially vulnerable to fragmentation, i.e. the loss of connections for exchange between suitable habitats. Other threats include the introduction of fish and crayfish into breeding ponds, collection for the pet trade in its eastern range, warmer and wetter winters due to global warming, genetic pollution through hybridisation with other, introduced crested newt species, the use of road salt, and potentially the pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans.
  The northern crested newt listed in Berne Convention Appendix II as "strictly protected". It is also included in Annex II (species requiring designation of special areas of conservation) and IV (species in need of strict protection) of the EU habitats and species directive, as a European Protected Species. As required by these frameworks, its capture, disturbance, killing or trade, as well as the destruction of its habitats, are prohibited in most European countries. The EU habitats directive is also the basis for the Natura 2000 protected areas, several of which have been designated specifically to protect the northern crested newt.
  Preservation of natural water bodies, reduction of fertiliser and pesticide use, control or eradication of introduced predatory fish, and the connection of habitats through sufficiently wide corridors of uncultivated land are seen as effective conservation actions. A network of aquatic habitats in proximity is important to sustain populations, and the creation of new breeding ponds is in general very effective as they are rapidly colonised when other habitats are nearby. In some cases, entire populations have been moved when threatened by development projects, but such translocations need to be carefully planned to be successful.
  Strict protection of the northern crested newt in the United Kingdom has created conflicts with local development projects, but the species is also seen as a flagship species, whose conservation also benefits a range of other amphibians. Government agencies have issued specific guidelines for the mitigation of development impacts.
caption: Drift fence for the capture and relocation of northern crested newts from a development site in the UK
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