It’s easy to miss them in the woodlands of British Columbia. The size of a thumbnail, energetic, erratic blobs of green and grey, they blend in beautifully with their forest surroundings.
But on the well-travelled biking and hiking paths in the resort community of Whistler, the western toads (Anaxyrus boreas) are very much in evidence. And on their annual migration from the breeding grounds of Lost Lake into the coast mountains, these tiny toads must make some perilous crossings. Not all succeed.
That’s where we came in – a handful of volunteers happy to flank the trails and paths. I had seen the call to action on the municipality’s website: the August toad migration was looming and the stewardship team needed help.
Western toads are sensitive to habitat changes, and our impact on their environment takes a toll. The municipality has been monitoring toad movements for more than a decade, and in 2008 started taking steps to help.
I signed up for some three-hour shifts on the Lost Lake trail, tasked with asking cyclists to dismount and walkers to look down. If the little guys were in danger, I’d gently scoop them with gloved hand into a plastic cup and deposit them into woodlands across the path. Proudly sporting my badge, “Toadally awesome volunteer”, and poised with a rubber glove, I was ready.
Everything went smoothly. Until the assault on the bridge. During peak times, hundreds of toadlets can come across the Lost Lake trails in an hour. Between 35,000 and 40,000 are observed during the annual event.
It felt like they all came across at once. Even with a brigade of keen young holidaymakers, armed with gloves and cups, other local volunteers and a trained zoologist, it was difficult to manage the onslaught. In the cooling afternoon, squiggles of toadlets hopped up rocks and powered onward, driven by some unseen force.
Cyclists carried their bikes and stepped gingerly. Dog walkers leashed their pets. We scooped and transported and released dozens and dozens, and dozens more. Western toads are explosive breeders; a female can lay some 12,000 eggs in a go. Only 1% of toadlets can be expected to survive to adulthood. Here’s hoping my time on the trails helped to improve the averages.