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It's Friday night at half past seven, but instead of heading to the pub or relaxing at home, I've taken a train to a town in Wiltshire to meet up with volunteers from a toad patrol. These dedicated individuals sacrifice their evenings to protect the native amphibian community.

A Worrying Decline in Population

The common toad is growing more rare. A recent research conducted by an wildlife conservation group revealed that the UK toad population have almost halved since the mid-1980s. Observing a creature that has been a fixture of the UK landscape in decrease is labeled "concerning" by researchers. Toads "don't need very particular environments" and "ought to live successfully in most of areas in Britain," meaning if even they are not managing to survive, "it kind of suggests that things are not as they should be."

The UK toad population has almost halved since 1985

The Danger from Roads

Though the study didn't cover the reasons for the decline, cars certainly plays a part. Calculations indicate that 20 tons of toads are killed on British roads annually – in other words, hundreds of thousands. Unlike frogs, which might be content to mate "if you left out a small container," toads favor large ponds. Their ability to stay out of water for longer than frogs means they can travel further to find them – sometimes hundreds of metres. They tend to follow their ancestral migration routes – it's common for mature amphibians to go back to their birth pond to mate.

Breeding Habits

Fittingly, the initial amphibians begin their quest for a mate around Valentine's day, but others travel as late as spring, until it gets dark and travelling through the night. During that period, toads begin migrating from wherever they have been overwintering "almost simultaneously."

A local helper, who was raised in the region and has been working to save its amphibians since he was a child, notes that "They've got just one focus: to go and have an orgy." If their route crosses a road, they could all get run over, and that breeding season would never happen – preventing a new generation of toads from being produced.

Rescue Groups Throughout the UK

Finding hundreds of toad carcasses on local roads "resonates deeply with people," and has resulted in the creation of toad patrols throughout the UK – hundreds of organizations are currently registered with a countrywide program. These teams collect toads and carry them over streets in buckets, as well as counting the number of toads they encounter and advocating for other protection measures, such as road closures and underground wildlife tunnels.

Patrols usually work during the migration season, when amphibian movements are frequent. However, this implies they can miss numbers of toadlets, which, having been eggs and then tadpoles, exit their water habitats over an irregular timetable in the end of summer. Because of their small stature – just one or two centimetres wide – "they can get obliterated by car traffic." And as being hit "essentially crushes them," it's more difficult to collect information on them. At least when adult toads are lost, their carcasses can be counted.

Year-Round Efforts

Unlike many groups, one local team, who are in their eighth year of functioning, go out throughout the year – not nightly, but whenever weather are damp, or if someone has reported about a toad sighting in their group chat. When I request to accompany them on duty, they admit it is "not ideal conditions" – toad hibernation season has started and it's been a dry day – but several of the volunteers gamely agree to walk up and down their area with me and search for any toads. "If anyone can find any toads tonight, those two will spot one," says the group coordinator, pointing to her teenage child and the longtime volunteer. After for two hours without a glimpse of any amphibians, and now they have scaled a barbed wire fence to inspect beneath some wood.

Community Involvement

The mother and son joined the patrol a year and a half ago. The youngster loves all things nature-related and has an ambition to become a conservationist, so his parent started to look for things they could do together to protect native animals. Now she loves it as much as he does, the middle-aged small business owner explains – so when the group was seeking a fresh coordinator lately, she volunteered for the role.

The teenager, too, has played an important role in the organization. A clip he made, urging the local council to close a street through a protected area during breeding time, influenced the outcome the group's way. After a year of lobbying, the authority approved an "restricted access" rule between 5pm and 5am from February through to spring. Most drivers duly avoided the route.

Other Wildlife and Challenges

A few vehicles go past when I'm out on patrol and we find some victims as a result – no toads, but three squashed newts. We spot one living newt as well, and the teenager is especially excited to see a daddy longlegs, which moves in his palms. Yet in spite of the team's best efforts to let me see a toad, the local population has clearly gone dormant for the winter. It appears that I couldn't have found any better success elsewhere in the nation – all the rescue teams I reach out to explain that it's near-impossible at this season.

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

One email I get from a different helper, who has generously taken the trouble to look for toads in a noted location, considered the largest accurately monitored toad group in the UK, arrives in my inbox with the title: "No toads." However, in late winter, he informs me, the team expects to help approximately 10,000 mature amphibians across the road.

Impact and Limitations

How much of a difference can these organizations actually make? "The reality that volunteers are doing this regularly on cold, damp and unpleasant evenings is quite extraordinary," notes an expert. "This effort that very much should be celebrated." However, while toad patrols are able to slow the decline, they can't stop it completely – not least because vehicles is just one danger.

Other Dangers

The global warming has meant longer periods of drought, which create the poor environment for some of the animals that toads eat, such as worms and slugs, while higher water temperatures have caused an increase of blue-green algae, which can be toxic to toads. Warmer cold seasons also lead toads to emerge from their hibernation more often, disrupting the resource preservation crucial to their life cycle. Habitat destruction – especially the loss of big water bodies – is an additional threat.

Researchers are "always a bit worried about overemphasizing practical benefits on wildlife," but "There is a big value in just their presence." But toads do have an important role in the ecosystem, consuming almost any invertebrates or small animals they can swallow and in turn sustaining a number of birds and mammals, such as hedgehogs and otters. Improving situations for toads – such as creating more ponds, protecting forests and constructing amphibian passages – "benefits for a wide range of additional wildlife."

Historical Importance

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