Toads in road again, why are they leaving ponds ?

[doggyplop]

hi all,
after a nightmare march/april of toad road crossings to the local ponds, im now concerned about it happening all over again right now.

the background to this saga is in my older thread, please have a look cos it may help you deduce what is happening now ---

I need help to stop mass toad deaths, asap please

so my dilema is this, why are toads (small males and larger females) bieng killed on the same road mentioned in the thread above ?

where are they going ? are they going back to areas they initially came from in march ? surely they are not going back to those areas to hibernate, its summer ?

its harder for me now to rescue them off the busy road cos i dont know where they are going, and if i put em back in the ponds area maybe im just setting them back a couple of hours and therebye exposing them to heavier traffic later ?

many tadpoles from breeding this year are still not fully formed toads yet, so it can not be this years generation dispersing already?, and even if it is, how come they are heading in the same direction across that busy blasted road again ?

i did not notice this after last years march slaughter, im stumped.

i dearly wish copeland council would put up toad crossing signs to slow drivers down to give the toads a chance.
last night at 3am i watched a sod in a white car zoom down this road (mirehouse road) at approx 70mph, its a damn 30mph zone !. its outragoeus.

i need help to get copeland council (links in above thread) to stop the slaughter.

i came out at 2am last night and saw a dozen dead toads in a 30 metre stretch of mirehouse road, near the ponds area.they are heading away from the ponds to somewhere, i think.

i saw 3 live ones grouped together at the pond entrance, and when they saw me get close they hid from sight, good job really cos i dont know what to do with em cos i dont know where they want to be.

i hung around for an hour but did not see them move far or get run over.i think they were spooked and decided to hide ?
in that time many cars came by, including the 70mph idiot.

maybe they attempted the crossing later or maybe they went into the ponds area, i just dont know.

any help to explain what they are doing is much appreciated.

[SheffieldLass]

I don't know. However I was driving along some Forestry Commission tracks last night, checking certain parts of the forest for nightjar and noticed there were quite a few toads and frogs crossing those roads. I've being doing regular nightjar checks on these tracks and this was the first time that I've spotted toads and frogs. There had been some large drops of rain and it was threatening some short, sharp showers. We've had some spells of solid rain in the last day or two so it is not as bone dry as it had been (though it is still pretty dry).

Maybe the recent damp weather after the very dry makes it a good time for them to start moving about at the same time, so appearing to be a mass movement rather than a drip-drip() of steady movement if the weather had been the usual British changeable type.

[Mark_b]

The wet weather has probably brought out the toads in force to find some food before its too dry I would say, both sides of the road must be part of their feeding habitat.

I guess it depends on the site and the habitat within but with the toad patrol I run in South Wales, once the females have dropped their load they cross straight back over the road, this years males were still coming over to the canal when females were heading back.

In some cases where they have come from (woodland in my case) isn’t just their hibernation site, its also their feeding grounds. Toads hardly ever feed in the water, that is just for breeding. They are 90% terrestrial really.

[doggyplop]

cheers.
if they are going back to the woodland from whence they came, then its gonna be mass slaughter all over again crossing that swine of a road and its careless drivers.

apparently toads can live for 15 years, but no way around here with 2 trips a year across a large estate, numerous drains and the road from hell.

this just makes the case for getting copeland council to do something even more pressing, but i can not get any help, even froglife.org dont seem interested, ill try em again and see.

despite speaking to a couple of other organizations, words are all i get, it seems to me that they assume cos i make an effort on my own then the situation is under control, they dont seem to be concerned that i can not be expected to be around the crossing at all hours.its a big job for one guy.

britain is turning into a third world country, no regard for animals or the enviroment, economic hocus pocus taking precedence over all else and to hell with the enviroment and creatures struggling against man made dangers.

people who help struggling wildlife are thin on the ground, at least visiting this forum cheers me up cos its good to see others that care.

[Mark_b]

I think third world countries have more respect for their wildlife than western ones to be honest.

This isnt going to make you feel any better but I have read that toads may live to 40!

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by doggyplop

hi all,

i dearly wish copeland council would put up toad crossing signs to slow drivers down to give the toads a chance.
last night at 3am i watched a sod in a white car zoom down this road (mirehouse road) at approx 70mph, its a damn 30mph zone !. its outragoeus.

At a site near Sheffield the toads would get squashed by the hundreds ... it was just a lane though. I helped rather a lot across the road last year, so I know what it is like. I noticed when I visited this summer that toad crossing signs had been erected. They weren't there in the spring. I can't remember if they were official ones or not. I'm not sure if it makes any difference to the way many of the drivers behave though. But at least it alerts the more wildlife friendly drivers to be on the lookout.

[doggyplop]

wow, living to 40 really surprises me, but can you imagine any toad in this wildlife unfriendly country getting to that age, no way !

the uk has no areas where these inoffensive creatures (or others) can breed and migrate in safety.

the uk is just a mass of roads and land grabbing farmers fields.
we are the least wooded country in europe and probably the most polluted.
approx 90% of this countrys land is off limits to the public, its truly a fuedal country.
95% of the population lives on 5% of the land.

the little bits of leftover scrag end scraps of land where amphibians and others can live is tiny, and yet they are even persecuted and killed in these areas.

the powers that be in this country have a nerve banging on about the enviroment in tv friendly publicity briefings, but in reality and on the ground they do nothing at all to help this countrys enviroment or its wildlife.they sit by whilst trees and animals dissapear at an alarming rate.

local councils need enviromental issues forced down their throats (partic copeland council), and im afraid its left up to peaple like us on this board to do this job, cos most people dont give a damn.

[posie]

..I think that, as suggested in the spring, that if you offer the local newspapers and local TV bods the story, it could open up all sorts of doors for you and your problem, maybe you have already done this, but if not, give it a try, you never know....Posie