The amphibian project

Riccardo tells us about the Amphibian Project.

The Amphibian Project came about partly through my own initiative and partly thanks to other local people, because we realised that the toads, which had once been extremely numerous, were no longer making the mass spring migrations they once did—the kind you see in nature documentaries. They were disappearing, and only a few isolated populations remained in the southern part of the lake basin. Besides the major environmental issues—pollution, climate change and so on—we tried to understand which factors, specifically at Lake Fimon, were causing this decline. One of them was road traffic. At weekends and in the evenings, the local venues are open, so the toads move around at night and are run over by cars. Then there is another problem when the young emerge. They are known as newly metamorphosed amphibians: the tadpole completes its transformation into an adult and leaves the water. This happens during the day, usually in May, when the weather is fine. So, if the lake is crowded on a Saturday or Sunday, these newly metamorphosed amphibians leave the water en masse. But they are tiny, no bigger than ants, and they are crushed by the thousands. We made an estimate on a single Sunday along a stretch of about 400 metres and counted more than 50,000 individuals that had been run over. Because they are so tiny, it is like watching an anthill on the move, and when people are walking around it becomes almost impossible to avoid stepping on them. We began simply by carrying out roadside rescue operations with the adults, moving them away from the road, because they move very slowly during their migration. At the same time, we started implementing a number of small measures in cooperation with the Municipality and the Province. For example, we avoid mowing the vegetation along the lakeshore during the migration period when these newly metamorphosed amphibians leave the water. We also installed walkways so that people could continue walking around the lake without trampling them—the young amphibians could pass safely underneath. Eventually, we even introduced temporary closures of the road around the lake during certain periods.
This whole process has attracted a great deal of positive media attention, because people have responded extremely positively. In fact, many have become curious and come specifically to witness these migrations for themselves.