Toad Patrol By John Gripper
[This article taken from U.K VET - Volume 3. No 5. September 1998]

It all started when a cat was brought into my surgery with a tongue lesion. The owner asked:"Could it have been caused by the cat licking the toads"?

"Which toads"?

"The toads in our garden - we have dozens of big ones and they're a nuisance."

I had just had a pond dug in a corner of one of my fields so I offered to re-home some of their toads. The next night a shoebox full of enormous toads was handed in to reception and this was followed by a number of similar boxes over the next few weeks.

These common toads (Bufo Bufo) were released near to the pond, along with some toad spawn which came from another pond. This translocation was then forgotten for the time being.

A few years later we noticed that in the early Spring there were a lot of dead toads on the road next to the pond and realised that the road was part of a migration route between the meadow land and the breeding pond. Toads suffer substantial traffic-related mortality every year, when their migration routes from hibernation sites to breeding ponds oblige them to cross roads. In some instances it is possible to design fence and tunnel systems to aid the movement of toads across the road.

We decided that we must form a toad patrol to stop the annual carnage of the toads when they crossed the road. We persuaded the local authority to put up road toad signs. The site was registered as one of the 600 official sites, with the Ministry of Transport through Froglife and the Herpetofauna Group of Britain and freland (HGBI), but there are no common toads in Ireland - only a few colonies of Natterjacks!

We purchased the necessary equipment from Froglife for a modest sum.

This consisted of mobile toad crossing road signs and reflective fluorescent jackets. Following an advertisement in the Parish magazine to help a toad across the road, we soon had volunteers from our village and the surrounding area to man a nightly rota in the early spring for the toad patrol. The helpers provided their own torches and a bucket.

In the first year of our toad patrol we moved a total of 1200 toads across the road and then back again to their home territory. The record number counted in one night was 275. We discovered that the movement of toads across the road occurred in March and April after rainy weather when temperatures exceed four or five degrees centigrade, between dusk and midnight.

Toads are differentiated from frogs by their dry warty skin, they walk or crawl and can travel at 100mph (meters per hour). Frogs have a moist smooth shiny skin and they jump or hop. The rarer Natterjack toad can be distinguished from the Common Toad by a thin yellow stripe along its back and they move by running. The mature male toads return to their original breeding pond every year after a period of three years, the females every other year. If ponds dry up the toads still turn up but sit around disconsolately with nowhere to breed. The large toads are the females and sometimes they turn up in tandem (amplexus position) as the males ambush them en route, on dry land, because they do not want to wait for them to reach the pond. There are usually about five times more males than females.

Males already in the water call with a short piping note, probably to warn off the competition as much as to woo the female. If the female gets past the smaller younger male toads she can take her pick of the deep-croaking larger males who wait in the colder parts of the pond.

In the courtship the males cluster around the female in a strong embrace, holding on with the nuptial pads on their forefingers - on occasions enthusiasm is so great that the female drowns from the weight of the males. After about 2 weeks of frantic activity the toads leave the pond to return to their home territory.

The toad spawn is laid by the female in strings of jelly every few minutes, each of which is fertilised by the male, until up to 250cm has been laid and tangled into the weeds at a depth of about six inches. Frogs lay their spawn in clumps on the water surface by the edge of the pond.

The eggs hatch after ten days into tadpoles, which then grow legs and become tiny juvenile toads (toadlets) and leave the pond in July, to migrate up to two miles away if they are not gobbled up by the watchful herons or other predators.

During the spring and summer, toads hunt actively at night for insects such as ants, woodlice, beetles, snails, flies and moths and spend long periods in one place by day. No eating goes on during the hibernation or breeding season, so there is in effect, a fast from November to April.

Toads have a life expectancy of 20 years. When approached by a snake, toads become very frightened indeed, inflating themselves with air and stretching on tiptoe in the so called "defence posture". If under severe pressure from being trodden on, or the jaws of an animal, the toad will excrete a white sticky toxic substance on its skin that has a nasty taste and will cause salivation and frothing from the mouth of the attacking mammal but does no lasting harm. The toad is promptly dropped and left alone next time.

A common predator is the "toad fly", a greenbottle, Lucilia Bufonivora, which lays its eggs on toads, the eggs hatch and the maggots crawl up into the nostrils which causes breathing problems. Once inside, the maggots just start eating and the toad is devoured completely except for the bones and skin.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation (Natural Habitats) Regulations 1994 protect the Adder, Grass Snake, Common Lizard, Slow-Worm, Great Crested Newt, Natterjack Toad, Smooth Snake and Sand Lizard but NOT the Frog, Common Toad, Smooth or Palmate Newt. However it is forbidden to sell common frogs or toads without a licence from the Department of Environment.

The national toad population is reducing because of the increase in the pollution of rivers and streams by chemicals and pesticides and the loss of ponds and hedgerows. It is a privilege to take part in a local community conservation programme and maintain a new healthy breeding pond for toads which is now also providing a haven for newts, frogs and moorhens.

For more information please contact:

Froglife
PO Box1
Halesworth
Suffolk
IP19 8AW
Tel : 01986 873733
Fax : 01986 874744
Web : www.froglife.org

The Herpetological Conservation Trust: 655a Christchurch Road, Boscombe, Boumemouth, Dorset, BH1 4AP - Tel: 01202 391319.

British Herpetological Society: c/o The Zoological Society of London, Regents Park, London, NW1 4RY - Tel: 0181 452 9578.