Cheers for the mountain of mail following my previous offerings. The general theme running through the responses was that the punters are getting a tad jaded by the contents of your modern punk/HC zine. They're looking for that something that's a little bit different and they've been quite specific. Indeed without exception they've been saying, "Mike, please do us an informative yet concise piece on all the shit we should know about great crested newts". No worries, that's why I'm here.

The great crested newt (Triturus cristatus) is one of 6 amphibians native to Britain, and the largest of our three newt species (others being the palmate newt and the common or smooth newt). It's got a slimy, warty skin, and is blackish above with a black-spotted golden yellow belly. The males have a high toothed crest and a silver stretched tail. My sources don't reveal what a female looks like, but from memory there's less of a crest. Adults get to about 17cm long including the tail, while the other 2 newt species can only muster about 10cm. Basically they have the appearance of mini-dinosaurs and they're fucking quality.

But populations of the great crested newt have plummeted over the past 50 years, and they're now classified as 'nationally rare'. This has led to them becoming a heavily protected species, covered by both national (the flawed Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981) and international law. Basically it's illegal to deliberately kill, injure, capture or disturb them; or to damage, destroy or block access to where they live and breed. The law applies to eggs, tadpoles and juveniles as well as the adults. So let's use the coppers to our advantage for once and ........ er, dial 999 next time you see someone beating up a great crested newt tadpole or something.

Loss of habitat is a big fucking headache. Protect habitat and you're a long way towards conserving a species. Various features can help support healthy great crested newt populations. Meadowland and woodland are lovely, but if there's none available other shit will do. Even a pile of builder's rubble (but lots of it) can do the necessary by providing top notch shelter. But absolutely vital to our newts survival is water. And water with enough surrounding land in which they can find food, shelter and places to hibernate.

Ponds are the business, but they're disappearing from Britain at the rate of 25 a day! Indeed 75 fucking percent of our ponds have gone over the last 100 years. Such habitat loss, unsurprisingly, has decimated amphibious wildlife like our friends the newts. Development is obviously a key reason, but it ain't the sole problem. Farmers have a lot to answer for too. Ignore these twats (nice organic farmers excepted) next time you hear them managing to string a couple of words together to spew out their standard, "We knows what's best for the countryside". They know what's best for their bank balance and fuck all else. Just remember that they're greed for more arable crop land through intensification has played a key role in the destruction of these unique and complex freshwater habitats. I mean it's not just the newties that need ponds. 1 in 3 of our native plants and some 12,000 (!) invertebrate species live there too.

So what do your great crested newts do all year? Well it starts by some adults returning to their breeding ponds from as early as January, though most will turn up some time between April and June. They'll mate, with each female laying several hundred eggs, one at a time, on pond weed or other submerged plants. Most adults have done a bunk by the end of July to hunt for grub on land until hibernating in late Autumn. By this time most of the hatched tads have developed legs and lungs and will have sodded off to live off the land too. But a few, for reasons best known to themselves, remain in the pond throughout the Winter. Youngsters will grow into adults over the next coupla years, and will then search for a pond to breed in. This is often the one they're born in unless some shite has filled it in and planted genetically-modified soya crops.

So there you go - a lot of useful shit on great crested newts. Why not join my crusade and sign up to the 'Punks love great crested newts' campaign. We can have our own zines, bands, and range of vegan ice creams. So what do you want next time? Fuck Johnny Morris, name your species and Mikey MOONRip will do the business. By the way, I've moved. Write to Mike / Flat 3 / 72a Parchment Street / Winchester / Hants / SO23 8AT / UK. PS - Look out for decent gigs returning to Winchester later in the year.


Mike