AR-News: Preventing "toadal" loss

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http://www.enn.com/news/2004-03-26/s_12689.asp

Preventing "toadal" loss



Friday, March 26, 2004
By Elissa Wolfson, E/The Environmental Magazine



Armed with good humor and lots of insect repellant, a group of Cornell University students, staff, faculty, and assorted herpetologists spent last summer building a toad tunnel to allow amphibians safe passage across a preserve near campus.

Cornell Plantations, the college arboretum in Ithaca, New York, manages Ringwood Preserve, which features spring peepers, red-spotted newts, wood frogs, spotted and Jefferson salamanders, turtles, and of course, toads. The road through it, which separates the preserve from a breeding pond, carries about 600 vehicles a day, creating close encounters of the not-so-good kind between amphibians and cars.

Millions of amphibians throughout the northeast (already in precipitous decline for a variety of reasons) are killed each spring, as they migrate across roads on warm, rainy nights to their breeding ponds.

"If they didn't do this, their eggs would dry up," explained Jacqualine Grant, a Cornell graduate student and teaching assistant. "As conservation-minded herpetologists, we wanted to reduce this slaughter."

Grant envisioned a drift fence to help guide amphibians to an already existing culvert underneath the road and helped raise $5,000 for it. The fence, created for this purpose by a polymer company, is made from recycled plastic and curves over on top to prevent hopping creatures from straying.

In one long workday, the group successfully installed the toad tunnel in an area previously surveyed for mortality.

"One evening I counted over 100 road-killed newts there," said Grant. "Over the course of a breeding season, we will have saved hundreds of animals."

Such critter crossings are found throughout the United States. Each spring, migrating salamanders in Amherst, Massachusetts, use similar tunnels to reach breeding pools. The town has even posted a "Watch Out for Salamanders" sign to slow down motorists.

University of Massachusetts amphibian expert Scott Jackson, who helped design the tunnels, offers tips to would-be protectors:

* Design tunnels to accommodate site conditions
* avoid single-species designs
* know the biology of the target species
* locate tunnels close to the species' movement corridors
* monitor the project and share the results.

A state Department of Transportation design team followed these recommendations when planning a culvert across a stream in Pawtucket, Rhode Island's historic Slater Mill Park. They added shelves inside the culvert, slightly above the water. Now green frogs, mice, and other wildlife can continue their path alongside the stream. Since the shelves were added before construction, they added little to the cost.

It's in our own best interest to protect amphibians, said Grant. Their sensitivity to environmental contaminants makes amphibians, like coal-mine canaries, valuable indicator species.

They also eat vast quantities of mosquitoes and flies. And what would be springtime without the cheerful calls of spring peepers?


Related Links

Cornell Plantations  
Federal Highway Administration   




Source: E/The Environmental Magazine






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