Red legged frogs + cars Don’t Mix
Filed Under: biodiversity, environment, event, health, urban critters, vancouver on December 21, 2009
Over the past decade in metro Vancouver, there has been a number of efforts to preserve our remaining amphibian population.
One of the better known efforts occurred a decade back when a group of school boys informed the authorities of the existence of an endangered tailed frog population located in a proposed residential development.
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Tailed Frog photo courtesy of California Herps
As a result, a portion of land was protected for the Tailed Frogs, and alterations to the proposed development were made. All this because children in West Vancouver, B.C. did some research about the frogs, made presentations to government officials and the media.
During the planning and construction efforts for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) prepared plans for minimizing habitat disturbance in the corridor that linked the city of Vancouver to the resort municipality of Whistler.
From the 2010 website:
Tailed Frog Habitat Management —
Based on the recommendations of a governmental environmental assessment, VANOC in 2007 implemented a tailed frog-management plan at the Whistler Creekside alpine skiing venue. During site construction, the team avoided disturbing an in-stream frog habitat wherever possible. Where disturbance was unavoidable, VANOC used best practices to move tailed frogs and tadpoles by hand, relocating them 40 metres upstream. Environmental monitors have since determined there is a population abundance of the tiny tailed frogs in Boyd Creek, site of the relocation.
Unfortunately, despite the well meaning efforts by VANOC, some amphibians have not fared very well.
Large numbers of red legged frogs have become flattened victims as a result of automobile crossings.
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The following article courtesy of the Vancouver Province newspaper:
Frogs the losers in Sea-to-Sky upgrade
Despite tunnels, many amphibians flattened while trying to cross highway, experts say
By Clare Ogilvie, The Province
The $600-million upgrade to the Sea-to-Sky Highway is a death trap for thousands of red-legged frogs and other animals.
Two kilometres of the new highway was built through the frogs’ migratory path in a wetland area near Pinecrest, 15 minutes south of Whistler.
Steps taken by the highway developer, the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Environment to save the amphibians, a threatened species, don’t seem to have worked.
The efforts include passageways built under the highway and short netting fences installed along the edge of the road to guide the frogs into the tunnels.
“My sense of it is that they are not working very well for frogs,” said Joshua Malt, an ecosystems biologist with the Ministry of Environment.
“I did . . . surveys and walked the highway and counted dead frogs — and I counted over 200 amphibian mortalities in the summer season from spring to fall.
“However, the actual number is likely to be much larger.”
The frogs were flattened while crossing the road. (When tadpoles metamorph into frogs, they go in search of new habitat.)
Many salamanders and frogs climbed the fences, went underneath or went around, said Malt.
“If you look at the distribution of roadkill, there is not less roadkill next to the passages,” he said.
“It is all over the place, so clearly, the fencing isn’t stopping them.”
The situation has been on the radar of John Buchanan for months. The long-time Squamish resident and wildlife researcher said he
doesn’t understand how it was allowed to happen.
“I have to ask why [the transport ministry] was allowed to construct a highway there in the first place,” he said.
“As soon as you fragment frog habitat, it will be a death scene.
“It is clear to me that the environment just got tossed aside.
“I don’t know if a local extinction has happened here, but I am starting to lean toward that as a possibility.”
Frogs are not the only animals living — and dying — along the upgraded highway. Deer, bears, small mammals such as skunks, weasels, coyotes, raccoons and ducks live along it. As the highway was upgraded, different types of passageways were created at various locations to help migration from one side to the other.
Results have been mixed, said Malt, who is still hopeful.
“I think that the small- and medium-sized mammals . . . seem to be quite fine with using them.
“But the bear and the deer . . . they check it out, they go in and go out, but I haven’t seen anything go through. So they are a bit more hesitant.”
The latest statistics, from 1998 to 2007, show that six bears,12 coyotes, 69 deer,16 raccoons and 15 other types of animals have been killed by vehicles between Squamish and Pemberton.
Buchanan believes the numbers are higher, as these account for only the ones highway workers remove. And, he believes, the numbers will go up as more cars drive the road at greater speeds and wildlife is trapped by the new concrete, centre-line barrier system.
Angela Buckingham, chief biologist for the transportation ministry, said fencing along the highway is impractical. There are 72 access points to the highway and each one of those would need a gate or a cattle guard.
“We did certainly consider it for this corridor, but it was not workable,” she said, adding that well over $2 million has been spent on studies and mitigation for wildlife and that further studies will be done on how to prevent animal deaths along the route.
Meanwhile, Buchanan said the wildlife carnage is worse than he’s ever seen.
“I have lived in Squamish my whole life and I have never seen the type of wildlife kill, ever, that has been going on in the last year or so on the road,” he said.
“You [fence] this because it is the right thing to do.”
Email reporter Clare Ogilvie at clareogilvie@telus.net
Comments (1)
Another tragedy of the olympics -But not all for wealthy people with money. Skiing is an expensive hobby. Land is super expensive and homes in the stratosphere. And of course no tolls. Not like the Golden Ears Bridge. This is more the reason for sea to sky highway, I believe: For the one giant suburb from Pemberton to Hope as fast as they can build it.
The irreplaceable wildlife be damned.
Only when the LAST TREE HAS DIED and the LAST RIVER POISONED will people find they CANNOT EAT MONEY.
We are worst than ignorant terrorists. These projects are invented and created by supposedly educated people. However they subscribe to an alien value system apart and unecognizable to what most of us grew up with here.