Roads to be closed overnight to help toads cross to breeding grounds
Roads are being closed in and around a Shropshire town so colonies of toads don't croak it when crossing the road to their breeding grounds.
Volunteers have been helping to carry the amphibians over the lanes for the past few years during the mating season.
Now Shropshire Council has agreed that short sections of road can be closed overnight until the end of April and, together with its partner, Kier, has provided signage.
Residents on the Caegoody Lane and part of Swan Hill at the back of Ellesmere's mere can use the road to access their homes.
Over winter the toads have been hibernating, but in spring there is a mass march to ancestral breeding grounds, ponds and the mere, where they spawn. They usually make their move after dark when the temperature is above 6 degrees. They also prefer damp evenings.
On top of the road closures a group of volunteers have already begun their work helping the toads cross the roads safely in both those sites and also Horseshoe Lane, Criftins.
The Ellesmere Toad Patrol is looking for more volunteers, prepared to volunteer for a couple of hours a week in teams of two or three. They will have a short training session and insurance is provided.
More information is available on Ellesmere Toad Patrol's Facebook page.
Shropshire Council said the road closures will run between 7pm and 5am.
Signs will be erected in the road and a fully signed diversion route will be in place whilst the roads are closed. Access will be provided to properties and businesses within the closures, for emergency service vehicles, and for pedestrians, dismounted cyclists and equestrians.
Local drivers are asked to look out for the toad signs on roads, and to take care, slow down and look out for volunteers in the hi-vis jackets.
As well as toads the volunteers have also found frogs and newts, including protected great crested newts, crossing the lanes in the past few days.
On one of the lanes on Wednesday, more than 50 toads and newts were helped across the tarmac by volunteers in just an hour.
Shropshire Council said that the numbers of toads recorded in Ellesmere are the largest known populations having to make the hazardous journey across roads to reach their ancestral breeding ponds in all of Shropshire and Staffordshire.
