Breaking from the Chaos
One toad at a time
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been getting a bit overwhelmed with the news cycle and endless… I’m just going to call them what they are—horrors. So, we’re taking a break from discussions of academia and the impending doom this evening and bringing you a brief piece of news that will hopefully make you smile instead.
Have you heard of Toad Patrols?
Toads are creatures of habit and tend to return to the same breeding ponds every year between late February and April, typically beginning when the weather gets milder and wetter. Unfortunately, there are often busy roads between a toad’s pond of choice and the habitat it spends the rest of the year, and we haven’t done a very good job of teaching toads road safety. Language barrier, I guess.
We could try a public awareness campaign, but I suspect a toad’s attention span is about 0.5 seconds—barely enough time to register the existence of a billboard, let alone digest the message. What’s the solution? Toad Patrols.
Toad Patrols in the UK are volunteer-led groups that coordinate across the country to help toads safely cross roads as they travel to and from their breeding ponds. Toad Patrol volunteers also keep records of the numbers of toads in an area and toad road casualties, which helps conservation organizations such as Froglife and the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust identify high-risk locations where more Toad Patrollers, toad tunnels, or temporary road closures would help keep toads safe (toads are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in the UK). Volunteers are out every evening from dusk until approximately 9 PM from the first sign of toad road crossings in February until the end of the breeding season in April, loading up buckets of toads from the road and depositing them near their breeding ponds.
This effort doesn’t just help individual toads—ensuring as many toads as possible reach their breeding ponds helps maintain the genetic diversity of the UK’s toad population, contributing to toad survival by reducing inbreeding and associated fertility and survival rate decreases, reducing the chances that all toads become susceptible to the same diseases, and enhancing the toad population’s ability to evolve and adapt to climate and habitat alterations over generations.
Toad Patrols are also a wonderful way to connect with your local community. I’m quite an introverted person, and my days of going to clubs and bars ended relatively soon after I became legally allowed to be in those places. I also work from home, and while I’m relatively well acquainted with the wonderful workers at my local Greggs, there are limited opportunities to meet real people in the wild, which is something I’ve been thinking about having recently moved back to the UK after almost 13 years in Indiana.
If you need me tomorrow evening, no, you don’t. I’m on Toad Patrol.
(I’ve been assured that toads don’t bite. Will update if I discover I’ve been lied to.)
If you’re in the UK and want to join in, find your local Toad Patrol on Froglife!