GLOBE & MAIL (Toronto, Ontario) 30 April 05 Why didn't the frog cross the road? It took the tunnel (Ingrid Peritz)
Orford, Quebec : The soothing symphony of croaks call out to biologist Daniel Bergeron like the siren song of spring. It's nightfall, a warm April breeze drifts across Brompton Lake, and Mr. Bergeron doffs his coat and Tilley hat, a man possessed.
Mr. Bergeron is a bearded and bespectacled scientist with eyes that light up at his single-minded pursuit. He has devoted a good eight of his 35 years on Earth to saving frogs. Specifically, frogs that get squished trying to cross the road. His rescue method: a frog tunnel.
The innocuous-sounding project has eaten up countless hours poring over scientific journals, visiting amphibian underpasses in Massachusetts, convincing Quebec roadwork bureaucrats that he wasn't insane, and eventually winning over 22 different agencies, schools and small-town mayors.
His redemption comes at winter's end, when the spring peepers, wood frogs and spotted salamanders start lining up like rush-hour commuters to enter his tunnel.
Then, Mr. Bergeron is a contented man. "When spring arrives, I'm as excited as I was the very first year," he says. "If it's raining and the frogs start singing, it's extraordinary. I hear them sing and I say: 'Okay! It's happening!'
"People tell me I'm almost a missionary. The more people say it, the more I believe it."
Like all crazy ideas, the idea of the frog tunnel -- there are actually three of them along a 300-metre stretch -- started simply enough. Mr. Bergeron was driving home in 1997 along Highway 220, about 120 kilometres east of Montreal in Quebec's Eastern Townships, when he came upon a section of the road resplendent with splattered frogs, lying out like a vast tray of squashed hors d'oeuvre.
"Seeing them crushed before my eyes was so disheartening," he recalls. He went home and told his wife. She reminded him that he is a biologist. "Do something," she said.
So he did. Mr. Bergeron, an environmental consultant, began scouring texts and journals. Before long, he was on his way to Amherst, Mass., home to a salamander tunnel. Then he set off to convince bureaucrats in the provincial Transport Department. They could barely suppress a laugh, but they were won over by environmentalists in their own department who pointed out the obvious: The road in question had been built in the wrong place.
Each spring, hormone-crazed amphibians awake from their winter slumber in the maple-filled woods near Brompton Lake with the unwavering goal of breeding in the nearby marsh. Lying in their path is two-lane Highway 220. For frogs, it's like a superhighway stretching between their living room and bedroom.
Volunteers from the Association for the Protection of Brompton Lake got counting, and determined that 200 frogs an hour tried to cross the road at peak migration, but only 10 per cent made it.
The authorities came around. It eventually cost $75,000, from all three levels of government, plus some private foundations, before Mr. Bergeron put the finishing touches on the three polymer concrete tunnels.
Mr. Bergeron feels vindicated. Above ground, headlights barrel down the nighttime highway like the blazing eyes of a predator. Below, in the tunnels, hop the tiny spring peepers, no larger than a 25-cent piece.
"Look! There's another one!" Mr. Bergeron cries out. "Look at their beautiful eyes. It's magic, eh?"
Frogs fall into a category the experts call "charismatic megafauna." Like pandas and whales, they enjoy public affection. Beyond the affection come growing worries about their fate when they meet up with four all-season radials.
Canada may be the land of bear and moose crossings, but frogs don't get much of a break. (Mr. Bergeron says he had to turn to non-Canadians for help to get started.) Europeans started digging tunnels and underpasses for amphibians in the 1960s. In the United Kingdom, land of the animal-loving Brit, bucket brigades gather at dusk each spring to collect toads as they approach the road.
Elizabeth Kilvert, co-ordinator for Frogwatch, a joint Environment Canada/Nature Canada program, says there is growing concern over the effect of the automobile on amphibian habitats.
"We're putting down more roads and transportation grids. In some areas, cars are the biggest predator," says Ms. Kilvert, a biologist and science outreach adviser with Environment Canada. "But you can only add so much pressure before systems start to collapse."
Biologists say small victories like Mr. Bergeron's are as important as the biggest battles.
"He's a hero," says biologist David Green, a specialist in amphibians and reptiles at McGill University's Redpath Museum. "The problem of loss of biological diversity and loss of species is everywhere. There's no magic bullet to stop the destruction. It's the local initiatives that will save the wildlife around us, and you can do it one bit at a time."
Mr. Bergeron, who often lies in the dirt off the highway until 2 or 3 in the morning, watching the frogs in their tunnel, wouldn't have it any other way.
Why didn't the frog cross the road? It took the tunnel