GUELPH MERCURY (Ontario) 30 April 07 Why did the toad cross the road in a bucket? Residents help hundreds of toads heading to mate cross road safely (Brian Whitwham)
Guelph: It's an annual ritual that dates back several years, involving a dedicated group of neighbours and hundreds of toads.
Since before 2000, residents living around Arthur Street have been helping their neighbourhood toads make a treacherous journey through traffic to reach the Speed River, where they spawn. It's a rapid migration that occurs during a few weeks in April and May, once the milder conditions set in.
The march generally begins around dusk, when the toads emerge from the lawns and gardens of people's homes to try to cross Arthur.
But Stan Kozak, who lives on the street, said the journey is fraught with peril. At times in the past -- particularly before the city installed traffic-calming measures a few years ago -- hundreds of toads could be wiped out in a night by passing cars, he said.
That's why a group of residents now work together during the migration period to catch the toads in buckets and move them across the street safely.
"It's funny," Kozak admits. "But it's deadly serious to toads. . . . Cars are killers."
He can't say exactly when the effort started. Kozak moved onto the street in 2000 and soon noticed a woman with a bucket who said she had been helping the toads for a couple of years.
Toads are known to migrate in the early spring as a group to bodies of water they use as a breeding ground.
The toad patrol on Arthur Street isn't quite as unusual as it might seem. There are other communities in which volunteers do the same thing and in the United Kingdom, there are fences along some roadways to steer toads into tunnels under the street.
Bob Bell, who lives on Arthur and represents the ward as a city councillor, said the toad patrol is both a social and environmental event. He said many of the residents recall waking up on spring mornings years ago to find the road littered with the toads that didn't make it to the river.
"There were hundreds and hundreds of dead toads on this street," Bell said. "Now, if they start to move, there's always someone out there."
The consensus among the residents seems to be the toads can be expected on moist evenings -- perhaps after a rainfall -- when the temperature is above 13 C.
Eric Maginnis, who has been living on Arthur for about 28 years, said the toads are hard to miss.
"I've seen it on occasion where I can stand on the driveway and it looks as though the driveway is moving," Maginnis said. "They come so fast that you can't get them all."
Kozak said the neighbours were busy last Monday and helped a total of 60 toads across the street. Unfortunately there were still about 15 casualties, he said.
In about a month, the toads will return from the Speed River and the residents will once again help them back across the street.
But Maginnis said the difficulty is always figuring out exactly when that will take place.
"It's one of those things," he said. "The toads set the schedule."

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