Services

We have a dynamic range of services which cover the entire field of species mitigation from site surveys to project planning, licencing, capture, holding, breeding, re-release and monitoring. We provide a broad range of other ecological services including providing a full, detailed and professional advisory service for species mitigation and conservation.

Rewilding Services

Water Vole Services

Very many of our water vole releases have developed populations which have endured and expanded to occupy whole landscapes in locations such as the River Meon in Hampshire, The Queen Elizabeth Forest Park in the Trossachs, The Eden Rivers Trust in Cumbria, in Kielder in Northumbria and on the River Beane in Hertfordshire. With the evolution of the new smart rafting technology for North American mink we now understand how effectively with strategic, coordination this introduced predator can be extinguished. It may well now be possible to restore the once common water vole on a scale that was once impossible to consider and by doing so reestablish the very many ecosystem benefits that this important species affords.

The DGC has all the required expertise, equipment and facilities to complete water vole mitigation projects at all levels of complexity throughout mainland Britain from the HQ of our consultancies facilities at Upcott Grange Farm in West Devon. Our water vole specific services include:

• • • Direct reintroductions of water vole populations with partner organisations back into areas of suitable habitat
    • Capture, holding & translocation expertise and facilities
    • Site surveys and population assessments 
    • Environmental impact assessments
    • Population conservation plans
    • Mitigation plans and licensing requirements
    • Liaison with the statutory authorities
    • In-situ mitigation options
    • Ex-situ-mitigation options
    • Receptor site identification and remediation 
    • Replacement habitat design and planting
    • Post release monitoring plan
    • Veterinary assessment
    • Species specific training course

General Ecological Services

We have a dynamic range of services which cover the entire field of species mitigation from site surveys to project planning and licencing. By working alongside a range of well-established subconsultants we at the DGC can provide all the other required ecological surveys and information pertinent to other protected species such as:

• • Badgers
  • Eurasian Beavers 
  • Common Dormice 
  • Reptiles 
  • Great crested newts
  • Birds 
  • Barn owls
  • Small mammal and botanical surveys. 
  • Phase 1 Habitat surveys 
  • BNG assessments  

Rewilding Services

Derek has had extensive experience of rewilding landscapes having travelled widely to view a myriad of imaginative European projects to meet the site staff involved. Having employed the knowledge gained to change his own landscape rewilding project in Devon he has additionally advised a range of other organisations throughout Britain including various landholdings belonging to the  the National Trust, the Castle Town Estate, the Lowther Estate, Cholmondeley Estate, the Ewehurst Park Estate, the Clinton Devon Estate and the Knepp Castle Estate amongst many others on a broad range of options from changing landscape possibilities to species reintroductions.

• • Baseline surveys
  • Hydrology survey