Hazel dormice: survey or research – level 1 licence (CL10a)
Register for a licence to take, disturb or possess hazel dormice to survey for research, conservation or development projects.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
This licence allows you to survey hazel dormice by hand, including handling them in:
- nests
- nest tubes
- nest boxes
You must release the dormice where they were captured as soon as you’ve examined them.
You need a level 2 licence to mark dormice by clipping their fur.
You must apply for an individual licence or a level 2 licence for survey, research or conservation work not covered by this licence.
For development work affecting hazel dormice, you must apply for a mitigation licence.
Register with Natural England
Before you can use this licence, you must register with Natural England using the registration form for a class licence.
What you need to pay
It costs £104 to register for a new CL10a licence.
It costs £35 a year to continue your registration.
You must declare the intended use of the licence on your registration form. This will determine if you need to pay, such as to survey hazel dormice for development projects.
Natural England will refund unsuccessful applications.
When you do not need to pay
You do not need to pay if the licence is used for:
- voluntary purposes – any work you do is unpaid and you are registered with an organisation or charity as a volunteer
- conservation, science or research purposes, and research related to the protected species is carried out by a student or an employee of an academic institution or research body or an environmental non-governmental organisation
How to pay
You can pay using a bank card. Follow the GOV.UK Pay link on the registration form or survey return form.
Read the terms and conditions for paying for a wildlife licence.
References
You need to complete a reference to support a survey or research licence form when you register for this licence if you:
- have not held a licence for the species or a similar species for the last 3 years
- have a licence but want to add new methods
Report action taken
You need to complete a survey return form between 1 and 31 January each year, even if you’ve taken no action or did not find the target species.
You should only complete and submit a survey return form between 1 and 31 January. If you need to submit it outside these dates (for exceptional reasons only) email wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk
You will be asked:
- whether you did any surveys
- what survey methods you used
- for the details of any dead or injured dormice found
- for the names of any accredited agents who completed surveys on your behalf
- if you followed best practice
You must also send:
- actions taken under this licence, including surveys where dormouse were not found, to the People’s Trust for Endangered Species
- repeat nest-box monitoring data to the National Dormouse Monitoring Programme
- one-off or incidental records to the National Dormouse Database
Continue your registration
You can use the survey return form to continue your registration. It costs £35 a year to continue your registration.
Updates to this page
-
Updated licence charge.
-
Added a link to the updated 'Apply for a class licence to survey protected species' form.
-
We are currently making improvements to our licensing forms. The register for a class licence form on this page will change to a new format in early March 2025. Once this happens, the current version of the form will no longer be available.
-
Updated this licence to cover the period 1 January to 31 December 2025. Reworded several sections to make the information clearer, including the section on 'Registering to use this licence'.
-
There is an update to this licence for 1 January 2024.
-
Annual licence update, valid from 1 January 2023.
-
Page updated: You should only complete and submit a survey return form between 1 and 31 January. If you need to submit it outside these dates (for exceptional reasons only) email wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk
-
Changes to this page include the: - annual licence update, valid from 1 January 2022 - replacement of the PDF form for an accessible online form to submit survey returns - addition of information about the £35 fee to continue your registration which comes into effect in January 2022
-
From 1 October 2021, you will need to pay £80 to register for this licence, unless you're exempt.
-
Annual licence update.
-
Report form LR-CL10a-10b added.
-
Accessible version added - HTML.
-
Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2020
-
Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2019
-
Registration form A29-1 added.
-
Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2018
-
Annual licence update 2017.
-
Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2016.
-
First published.