MEMBERS of The Smallbrook Toad Patrol in Warminster have donned masks to promote a road safety message as they try to avert a massacre of lusty amphibians beginning their annual migration to breed.
The toads annually migrate around Valentine’s Day every year as they emerge from hibernation and head for their ancestral breeding ponds in the Smallbrook Meadows Nature Reserve.
The toads always use the same route, crossing the Smallbrook Road at night to reach ponds that they have used for generations. The males move first and wait for the females beside the ponds in the Smallbrook Nature Reserve and Henford Marsh.
But as they attempt to cross, hundreds of males and female toads are mown down by vehicles using the road, including cars, motorcycles and lorries.
Clare Hancock, of The Smallbrook Toad Patrol, said that over the past three years, the group of around 60 volunteers have recorded the deaths of more than 400 female toads.
She added: “We are ready to rescue the toads when they come out onto the road.
“We wear hi-viz jackets and carry powerful torches while moving the toads to safety in buckets. The weather is often terrible as toads seem to prefer to move on wet and stormy nights.”
The toad patrollers record the number of toads, frogs and newts each year and send them to the charity Froglife which monitors the UK population of amphibians.
Although the toad is called the Common Toad (Latin name - bufo bufo), the species is rapidly declining throughout the UK because of loss of habitat and road deaths.
The loss of so many thousands of adult toads is having a dramatic negative effect on the numbers of new toadlets.
Although, the Smallbrook group records as many as it can, there will have been many hundreds more unrecorded deaths.
“In the UK toads have declined since the 1980s due to habitat loss, deaths on roads, fungal disease and chemical pollution in water.
“Smallbrook Road is registered as a toad crossing route with the Government’s Department for Transport. This allows toad warning signs to be used along Smallbrook Road,” Mrs Hancock said.
“Many toad migratory routes are closed for a short period in spring to allow the toads safe passage, for example Charlcombe Lane in Bath.
“The Warminster patrollers have made many requests for this to be considered by Wiltshire Council and Warminster Town Council.
“Last April the Town Council passed a unanimous resolution to discuss road closure with Wiltshire Council but as yet there is no news.”
Local authorities have a legal duty to have regard to conserving biodiversity, and toads are a species of principal importance for the conservation of biodiversity under Section 41 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.
Mrs Hancock added: “We’re hoping that anyone driving towards Smallbrook after dusk would consider taking an easier and safer route through the well-lit streets in the centre of town.
“If drivers do have to use Smallbrook Road we are asking them to slow down and look out for patrollers. However, a vehicle travelling at any speed is certain death for any toad, frog or newt on the road.”
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