WORCESTER NEWS (UK) 08 March 08 Toads helped to find a safe route to love (Sally Jones)
Toads are being saved from the perils of crossing busy roads, thanks to a pioneering project at a Worcestershire college.
Thousands of toads are killed on roads every year when they migrate from their winter hibernation grounds to breeding pools.
Now students at Pershore College are helping to save the creatures by setting up a pioneering toad crossing near the college.
The crossing was set up at the suggestion of Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and is part of a trial at only two sites in the county. If successful the crossings could be established across Worcestershire and the rest of the country.
Several students gave up a Saturday afternoon to create the crossing.
Sharon Edwards, a lecturer in the animal care department at Pershore College, said: "Where the toads are crossing from their hibernation areas to their breeding ponds we have sunk pipes into the ground and put a chicken wire fence along the road so the toads can't get on to the road.
"If they travel along the chicken wire they drop into a bucket.
"I go along twice a day and get the bucket out. I had 58 one day.
"This is a new trial and we are one of two sites in the UK trialing this."
In the first 10 days 130 toads were moved across the road safely.
Mrs Edwards added: "The traditional way they have been moved safely in this country is to have people who will go out at warm wet evenings and pick them up in a bucket. It isn't very successful and it isn't very safe for people to be on the side of the road.
"The students have really got into it and I have a noticeboard up in the animal care unit and we call it Toadwatch.
"I write down how many I move and the students are interested in how many are coming over."
Mrs Edwards said the crossing was on a road behind the college - which leads to Little Comberton - and some of the toads were actually coming to Pershore College ponds for their breeding season.
Toads helped to find a safe route to love