SOUTHERN DAILY ECHO(Southampton, UK) 23 October 08 One giant leap for mating natterjack toads
Rare metallic-eyed natterjack toads found a move to the New Forest was just the thing for their love lives.
The Forestry Commission and the Herpetological Conservation Trust moved 13 natterjacks from the Whitbeck on the Cumbrian coast, where procreation seemed a problem, to the New Forest Reptile Centre in a bid to increase numbers – and it worked.
Now a load of little tadpoles have been driven north back to their normal breeding grounds.
When the 13 natterjacks – they look like common toads except for a yellow stripe down their backs and a metallic green and black iris – were brought to the reptile centre at Holidays Hill near Lyndhurst, they were put in a specially-prepared pod resembling their natural habitat.
Forestry Commission ranger Richard Daponte, pictured left with one of the toads, said: “We expected these amphibians to need months settling into their new home before conditions were just right to produce their first young next spring.
“However, two days later I was astonished to find the ponds full of natterjack spawn strings.”
John Wilkinson from the Herpetological Conservation Trust said: “The tadpoles have been released into suitable pools in Whitbeck where we are trying to establish new breeding colonies.”
One giant leap for mating natterjack toads