One look in our pond and you’ll see why this species is worth protecting. Adults are 8–15cm long; males in breeding garb look more like little dragons than anything else in Europe. We can watch females laying eggs on pond plants and, if patient, feed them by hand. It really is like having a mini aquatic Jurassic Park in your back garden.
We have seen the colony grow dramatically in our thirty-plus years here, helped by organic gardening, many wild areas and a wildlife-first philosophy. Cottered hosts one of only two viable GCN colonies surviving in Hertfordshire — the other being at Berkhamsted Castle Moat. This is a conservation story of national significance, told through a pond in a Hertfordshire village.
Given the visual appeal of the newts, this unique site could become a biodiversity educational resource for local primary schoolchildren — a living classroom and a record of one of Hertfordshire’s wildlife success stories in a county which declared an Ecological and Biodiversity Crisis in 2024, citing the urgent loss of local species and habitats, including 76 extinctions in Hertfordshire over the last 50 years.
With the right support, this site could host curriculum-grounded educational resources for local primary schools, professional-quality video documentation of breeding behaviour, and a permanent record of one of Hertfordshire’s most remarkable wildlife success stories.
