Flattened frogs, toads and salamanders: Love and death on Pennsylvania roadways - PennLive.com

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On warm, rainy, spring evenings, rangers close River Road in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in northeastern Pennsylvania from about 4 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. the next morning to protect migrating amphibians from squishy deaths under the tires of motor vehicles.

Hordes of frogs, toads and salamanders are crawling and hopping to breeding pools in their annual rite of spring. Some will travel just a few hundred feet. Others might cover more than a quarter-mile.

All of them are focused on finding a mate and leaving behind gelatinous masses of eggs that, if conditions are favorable, will hatch into new generations of their species before the temporary pools dry up and disappear.

Elsewhere in the recreation area, outside of the protected passage over River Road, and across Pennsylvania and other northeastern states, countless other amphibians are making the same overland dash, and huge numbers are losing the race on roadways.

Several years ago, staffers at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary on the Berks-Schuylkill county line worried about similar carnage on the road crossing the Blue Mountain at the sanctuary. They tried “Caution, Amphibian Crossing” signs along the road.

And, to get a handle on the loss of life, they collected all the dead frogs, toad and salamanders they could find on Hawk Mountain Road. After just a few spring evenings, they had filled a gallon jar with the squashed remains.

A series of roadkill surveys in Indiana and New York in the late 1990s and early 2000s came up with a more quantified measure. In about a hundred days total they found more than 42,500 amphibians and reptiles dead on just a bit more than 7 miles of road.

Researchers in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Purdue University calculated that 7.6 herps were mowed down on every 0.6 of a mile of road every day March through July.

Biologist David Glista noted, “Clearly, road-kill is a major source of amphibian mortality and may contribute to their global decline.”

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates that 40 percent of amphibian species worldwide are in danger of extinction.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, amphibian species across the use are declining at an average rate of 3.79 percent per year and could be gone from half of the habitats they currently occupy within 20 years.

The USGS noted, “Though every region in the United States has suffered amphibian declines, threats differ among regions. They include:

“Human influence from the Mississippi River east, including the metropolitan areas of the Northeast and the agricultural-dominated landscapes of the Midwest.”

Roadkill may be a much less significant factor that climate change or destruction of habitat, but it’s also a factor that can be targeted with road-closings and similar actions.

Another effort to lessen the carnage on the roadways is the Amphibian Patrol organized since 2014 at Lancaster’s Overlook Park by the Lancaster Herpetological Society.

The group maintains a Toad Alert email list of interested volunteers. Then, with the approach of a rainy, warm evening, usually in April, when hundreds of toads will be on the move, the call goes out to gather, don the reflective “Amphibian Patrol” vests and help the amphibians across the road.

Volunteers are advised, “Arrive at the park just before dusk, about 7:30-7:45 p.m. Drive slowly into the park and watch for early toads on the road. Toad Happy Hour is roughly 8-9 p.m.

“Volunteers simply follow the walking trails throughout the park on their own, on the lookout for migrating toads. Our main objective is to prevent toads from being run over in the road. Please do not remove toads from unpaved areas. Please remember that toads are on an important mission, and should not be moved unless they are crossing a road or parking lot.

“When toads are encountered crossing the road, gently scoop them up, cupping your hands together rather than squeezing them, and escort them across the road in the direction they are heading.”

The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia annually runs the Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve Toad Detour, in which volunteers barricade several roadways to divert traffic away from the hundreds of toads migrating to the reservoir and ponds at the center.

They repeat the herp-saving effort later each year, when the baby toads have hatched and metamorphized through their tadpole stages and are ready to move back out into the wooded hills.

Although there may not be human volunteers waiting to get them safely to the other side, toads, frogs and salamanders will be crossing roads across Pennsylvania throughout spring.

Participating in one of the organized volunteer programs can be a special experience, but a wide variety of the small animals can be spotted along nearly any backroad through a wetland area, through a lowland forest or along the base of a mountain on any warm and rainy night in spring. Pick a backroad with a minimum of slow-moving traffic in a promising environment and drive slowly, watching your headlight beams for small, hopping or crawling objects.

For more about amphibians in Pennsylvania:

Frogs and toads of Pennsylvania: Are there really 17 species?

Salamanders of Pennsylvania: 22 species, 2-20 inches, blue, red, green, yellow, marbled

Eastern hellbender on route to becoming Pennsylvania’s official amphibian

Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area: Wood frogs, snow geese, tundra swans and wildlife watchers

Freezing frogs to hypothermic birds, how wildlife survives the bitter cold?

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