🔗 Share this article

It's a Friday night at 7:30, but rather than going out or watching a film, I've taken a train to a market town in the countryside to join volunteers from a toad patrol. These dedicated individuals sacrifice their nights to safeguard the local toad population.

A Worrying Decline in Population

The Bufo bufo is becoming increasingly rare. A recent study conducted by an wildlife conservation group showed that the UK toad population have almost halved since 1985. Seeing a creature that has been a fixture of the UK landscape in decrease is labeled "worrying" by experts. Toads "don't need very specific conditions" and "ought to live successfully in most of areas in the UK," meaning if even they are not managing to survive, "it indicates that things are not as they should be."

Toad populations across the UK have declined by almost 50% since the 1980s

The Threat from Traffic

Though the research didn't cover the causes for the decline, traffic is a major factor. Calculations indicate that 20 tons of toads are crushed on British roads annually – that is, hundreds of thousands. In contrast to frogs, which might be content to mate "if you left out a bucket of water," toads favor big bodies of water. Their ability to stay out of water for longer than frogs means they can journey farther to reach them – sometimes long distances. They usually stick to their traditional paths – it's typical for adult toads to return to their birth pond to mate.

Breeding Habits

Appropriately enough, the first toads begin their quest for a mate around Valentine's day, but some move as far as April, waiting until it gets night and travelling through the night. During that time, toads start moving from wherever they have been overwintering "all pretty much at the same time."

One volunteer, who grew up in the area and has been working to save its amphibians since he was a child, notes that "Their sole purpose: to go and have an orgy." If their route crosses a street, they could all get run over, and that mating period would never happen – stopping a next generation of toads from being born.

Rescue Groups Throughout the UK

Finding many of toad carcasses on nearby streets "resonates deeply with people," and has resulted in the creation of toad patrols across the UK – hundreds of organizations are currently registered with a national initiative. These teams pick up toads and carry them over streets in containers, as well as counting the quantity of toads they encounter and advocating for other protection measures, such as blocked roads and underground wildlife tunnels.

Volunteers tend to operate during the migration season, when amphibian movements are more regular. However, this implies they can miss numbers of young toads, which, having been eggs and then juveniles, leave their water habitats over an irregular timetable in late summer. Because of their size – just one or two centimetres wide – "they are destroyed by car traffic." And as being hit "essentially crushes them," it's more difficult to collect information on them. At least when mature amphibians are killed, their remains can be tallied.

Annual Work

In contrast to many groups, a specific volunteer group, who are in their eighth season of operating, go out year-round – not nightly, but whenever weather are warm and wet, or if someone has posted about a amphibian spotting in their messaging app. When I ask to join them on patrol, they admit it is "not a toady night" – winter dormancy has started and it's been a dry day – but several of the helpers gamely agree to walk up and down their area with me and see what we can find. "If anyone can locate any toads tonight, those two will spot one," says the patrol manager, pointing to her teenage child and the experienced member. After for two hours without a glimpse of any amphibians, and now they have scaled a wire barrier to check under some logs.

Family Participation

The mother and son became part of the patrol a while back. The youngster loves all things nature-related and has an goal to become a conservationist, so his mother started to search for activities they could do together to protect local wildlife. Now she enjoys it as much as he does, the middle-aged small business owner tells me – so when the group was looking for a new manager recently, she volunteered for the role.

The teenager, too, has played an important role in the organization. A video he made, urging the local council to block a street through a nature reserve during migration season, influenced the outcome the team's way. After a twelve months of lobbying, the council agreed to an "access-only" restriction between evening and morning from February through to spring. Most drivers respected and avoided the route.

Additional Species and Challenges

A few cars go by when I'm out on duty and we find some casualties as a consequence – no toads, but several crushed salamanders. We see one live amphibian as well, and the youngster is particularly pleased to see a daddy longlegs, which moves in his palms. Yet despite the team's hardest attempts to let me see a toad, the native community has clearly settled down for the winter. It seems that I wouldn't have had any better success elsewhere in the nation – all the patrol groups I contact clarify that it's near-impossible at this time of year.

This team anticipates assisting around ten thousand mature toads over the street

One email I get from a different helper, who has kindly made the effort to check for toads in a famous site, thought to be the largest accurately monitored toad group in the UK, arrives in my inbox with the subject line: "No toads." However, in late winter, he tells me, the group expects to help approximately ten thousand mature amphibians over the street.

Impact and Challenges

What level of impact can these groups truly achieve? "The fact that people are doing this consistently on chilly, wet and miserable evenings is remarkable," says an researcher. "That's something that very much deserves recognition." However, while rescue teams are able to slow the decline, they can't stop it completely – not least because traffic is not the only threat.

Other Dangers

The climate crisis has meant longer periods of dry weather, which cause the wrong conditions for some of the animals that toads consume, such as invertebrates, while higher water temperatures have caused an rise of blue-green algae, which can be harmful to toads. Milder winters also lead toads to wake up from their hibernation more often, interfering with the energy conservation crucial to their existence. Habitat destruction – especially the disappearance of large ponds – is an additional threat.

Experts are "always a bit worried about overemphasizing practical benefits on wildlife," but "It's important in just having these animals around." But toads play an important role in the ecosystem, consuming pretty much any small creatures or tiny organisms they can swallow and in turn sustaining a variety of predators, such as hedgehogs and otters. Improving conditions for toads – ie building water habitats, conserving woodland and constructing amphibian passages – "we'll improve them for a whole bunch of other species."

Cultural Significance

An additional motive to try to keep toads around is their "historical significance," notes an expert. Legends and tales around toads date back {centuries|hundred