The toad’s king of the road again in a 2020 leap year
IT has proved a leap year in more ways than one – more of Ireland’s frogs are surviving because less traffic meant fewer got flattened, according to an amphibian expert.
Collie Ennis says the frogs and newts that were emerging in springtime and crossing roadways to get to the ponds where they lay their eggs fared better than usual this year.
In previous years, he and other volunteers had launched a rescue mission in which they set out in the dead of night to carry the animals across certain hotspot frog crossings. But this year it proved unnecessary with less traffic. Now the offspring of those frogs and newts are beginning to emerge, and travelling in the other direction.’ Over next few months, the tadpoles of each species will be metamorphosing and turning into juveniles,’ says Mr Ennis, who is a science officer with the Herpetological Society of Ireland and an associate of research with TCD Zoology.
‘They’ll be leaving ditches and ponds that they’ve been breeding in and moving on to land to “eat up” so they can come back in a few years time and start again by reproducing themselves.’
Mr Ennis has now pleaded with anyone with a pond or who knows that they have frogs in their garden not to mow their lawn for a while longer.
‘If you can’t wait, just get a sweeping brush, and with the bristles turned backwards, just run it up and down to frighten any small frogs away,’ he says.
Mr Ennis, who also co-hosts the Critter Shed podcast with Colette Kinsella, says his own home in Tallaght is the residence of dozens of creatures, from tarantulas, to fish, to newt and lizards – and he even has a ‘rescue toad’ called Fernando.
‘Fernando arrived into Ireland as a stowaway in some vegetables from Europe,’ Mr Ennis explains. ‘He lives in our sitting room now.’
‘They’ll be leaving ditches and ponds’