Our latest SPLAT Update is out! It is an annual report highlighting our activities from April 2024 to March 2025. It includes acknowledgments of all the people who helped with protecting amphibians from the threat of roads, recreational trampling and invasive Yellow Flag Iris. It also describes our collaboration in creating guidance for delineating and protecting wetland habitats within the Clayoquot UNESCO Biosphere Region on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Check out a rundown of the projects we did last year in our 2023-24 SPLAT Update! A new venture was to help the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District mitigate the effects of a new bike path adjacent to the highway in a migratory corridor for Northern Red-legged Frogs and other amphibians. They placed new amphibian tunnels under the path and supported our efforts to build fencing to guide animals from the forest to beneath the path and then onward to cross through the original amphibian highway tunnel that we installed in 2011! Stay tuned to find out how well these new connectors work.
We also explored another wetland alongside the highway - a place where beaver activity occasionally floods the road. Turns out the beaver pond provides good summer habitat for amphibians. Maps and information given to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure will help them decide how to reduce the risk of flooding while still maintaining wet habitat during summer droughts.
Our biggest continuing effort is our collaboration with the Huu-ay-aht First Nations. We are monitoring new tunnels under the Bamfield Road to test how well they protect Western Toads from being "splatted", and allow them to travel to breed at Frederick Lake. It's rare to find such a large breeding population in the region. We highlight a bit of our conversations with two Knowledge Holders from the Huu-ay-aht First Nations who spoke about their relationships with the lake and wildlife and the reasons why amphibians are important.
Our 2022-23 SPLAT Update provides a summary of the work we did in collaboration with the Huu-ay-aht First Nations protecting Western Toads with new underpasses on the Bamfield Road. It also highlights an experiment to remove invasive Yellow Flag Iris from our ocean shoreline, ongoing monitoring of Northern Red-legged Frog populations and their use of underpasses along Pacific Rim Highway, and stewardship of amphibian habitats within the lands and waters of the Toquaht Nation. We acknowledge 100 people and funding agencies who contributed to our work last year! Check it out here.
We've published the highlights of our conservation actions to reduce the threats of roads and habitat loss on amphibians in 2021-22. We want to thank all the people who helped make it an inspiring year for us. We hope reading it will inspire you too! Find it here.
Creating an amphibian-friendly pathway over the rip rap beneath the Lost Shoe Bridge has continued since our earlier post this summer. We had always planned to add soil and plants over the mixture of sand and small stones, called "pit run", used to fill cracks in the rip rap. The importance of doing so was reinforced when we watched a Wandering Salamander struggle to get purchase on the "pit run" as it climbed up the slope at one of the bridge corners.
Then, from the corners where the fencing meets the bridge abutments to as far as the light can reach beneath the bridge, we planted dozens of sword ferns and lady ferns, sedges, rushes, false lily of the valley, coastal strawberry, twinflower and mosses. The final step was to spread fallen alder leaves over the soil and around the plants.
The following photos show the transformation from rip rap to pit run to a vegetated path in the southeast corner of the bridge.
More dramatic results happened in the southwest corner where the log placement reduced a steep drop across the rocks where the amphibian fencing joined the bridge abutment.
We were very pleased to find a Rough-skinned Newt on the path at this corner last week. It camouflaged well with the layer of dead alder leaves.
Our ongoing task is to monitor amphibian movements beneath the bridge. We installed cameras and search for frogs and salamanders along the highway and fences during warm rainy nights. The survey data will give us a relative measure of how many amphibians are moving across the road and being intercepted by the fencing. This will provide an index of how many we should expect to photograph moving under the bridge if our path is working!
Stay tuned for the results later this winter after we go through our camera images!
The Central Westcoast Forest Society, B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation support this project. We are grateful to them and a dozen community volunteers who have helped with the night surveys.
The provincial government has produced a set of guidelines at their website for reducing the impacts of roads on amphibians and reptiles in British Columbia. It's a resource for environmental consultants and various levels of government, industry and private landowners who build, manage and maintain roads in our province. It is a "living document" that will be updated as new information becomes available. We're happy that some of our work was included in the current version and we're onside to share more as we explore ways to improve passage for frogs and salamanders under Highway 4 on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Watch this video to see why amphibians and reptiles in BC need our help when it comes to roads.
