I clicked on this thread in the hope of getting some good news, but seems not ........
Good news-ish. Well mostly bad actually.
Futher destruction has been halted on that area. Good news. Bad news is, I have not found a single live specimen (adder: Vipera berus) in the immediate or surrounding area. Further bad news, clearance has begun on other areas now, despite it being mating season and those survivors needing another area to colonise and find cover. If they had cleared the area they are clearing now, it wouldn't have impacted on the adders. By clearing the original area and then moving to do more work nearby, they have caused so many problems, I can't even begin to think how many pages a report will take. Damage done now though. Inadvertently maybe. But the entire population of adders in an area that was renowned for being a stronghold for the species, will never recover from this. Sure, in a couple of years the whole area will be much better environment as a whole for them, and easily maintained from then on with little impact. But they will no longer be there in significant numbers to re-populate it. It would have been touch and go before this as to whether the population was genetically sustainable. Or even sustainable long term, given the sparse and isolated areas they gather in. Now numbers and genetic diversity are virtually nil.
Its appalling ,we had a similar thing here in Brecon Beacons park a few years back when water authority gained permission to run a new pipeline through the parkland where I have lived ,walked with my children for the past 28 years , we knew there were sloworms,lizzards grass snakes and adders ,newts smooth mainly but some crested in small populations,frog and toad breeding areas,All the contacts I have at hand will be sent a thorough report with photographic evidence backed up with years of study. It's a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted. But as I've told Robbi, there are individual adders I've seen here since I was 15 (25 years ago now) and it was a major stronghold for the species. They will all be dead now. It's like returning home and finding your house burned down. The damage is irreversable, the adders can't be brought back or replaced. And even if you could, they have nowhere now to hibernate as all the smaller surrounding sites have had the same thing happen over the last few years as part of the 'heathland restoration project'. This was the last one. Adders from the area gather together in communal hibernacula, the majority of the surviving population would have been under that lot. Only a few late comers having to go to ground before they made it to this site last November would have survived, and those few individuals will never be able to re-populate the area. Genetic diversity will be zero, and adders breed very slowly.