“It was awful to see them, so I set up a patrol with a team of five or six the first year, and now we have 50 volunteers.”
The toad patrol walks the lanes and carefully helps any toads in the road over to the other side.
Patrols normally start at sunset and finish either if there are no toads to help or when the commuter traffic has died down, usually by 20:00.
Claire said Dolphinholme has “some big fishing lakes and toads do prefer deeper, cooler water whereas frogs prefer the shallower garden ponds”.
“If you spot a toad, you walk up to it, check there’s no cars coming because you don’t want to put yourself at risk, pick up the toad, check what direction it was facing and you move it to the side of the road in the direction it was facing,” she said.
“It will either be heading to the pond or coming away from the pond.”
Claire said since 1985, there has been a 68% decline in toad numbers, and with patrols in place up and down the country “I’m just hoping we see the toad population growing year on year.”