Residents in Warminster are being asked if they would support plans to close a road during the migration season for toads and other amphibians.
The Smallbrook toad patrol group has urged Warminster Town Council to close Smallbrook Road for a month every year to save the toads, frogs and newts from being killed.
Thousands of toads and other amphibians cross the lane every spring to get to their ancestral mating area in the Smallbrook Meadows Lane Nature Reserve ponds on the southern edge of Warminster in the Wylye valley.
Scores of them end up being killed by vehicles using the lane and the local toad patrol volunteers say they cannot protect them all.
A spokesperson for the group said: “The Smallbrook Toad Patrollers have added up the number of toads, frogs and newts saved this year.
“Between April and October, the volunteers patrolled Smallbrook Road for 62 hours, moving amphibians in buckets to save them from being killed by traffic.
“The patrollers rescued 797 male and 120 female toads as well as 144 frogs and 166 newts.”
She added: “On Smallbrook Road, female toads are particularly threatened as there are far fewer females than males.
“Each female can produce 1,500 tadpoles so each one killed by a car reduces the number of Spring tadpoles.
“This year the patrollers recorded 55 dead female toads as well as 155 dead males, 38 dead frogs and 32 dead newts.”
The toad patrollers plan to present the town council with a petition asking them to work with Wiltshire Council to close the road annually for a month from spring 2025.
They say it will fulfil both councils’ legal duty to conserve biodiversity under the Environment Act 2021.
The closure would be in place between February 14 and March 13, from Smallbrook Lane car park to the junction with Upper Marsh Road and Henfords Marsh.
The petition is open until the end of December.
Warminster Town Council held an informal consultation on the potential road closure which finished on Monday, December 18.
At their next meeting on Monday, January 15, councillors will decide whether to take the request further with Wiltshire Council, the county highways authority.
The UK population of toads has fallen by 68 per cent in the last 30 years. Worldwide, 41 per cent of amphibians are threatened with extinction.
In a recent episode of the BBC’s ‘Planet Earth III’ Sir David Attenborough warned many species of amphibians are already extinct as they are vulnerable to fungal disease, pollution and habitat loss.
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