Each spring occurs along a section of road north of the second largest city in RussiaSt. Petersburg: Volunteers, many with yellow vests, patrol near the Sestoretsk swamp nature reserve.
They act as crossroads for thousands of toads and frogs trying to reach their spawning sites.
In general, there is not much traffic, but even the relatively low vehicle number would still kill up to 1,000 toads every year, he said Konstantin Miltaprincipal herpetology researcher at the Zoological Institute of St. Petersburg.
“On the big highways, the mortality rate is monstrous. Sometimes, the road surface can be covered with a layer of dead animals”Milta told The Associated Press.
In this section, a large orange red poster that presents one of the amphibians warns motorists: “Attention! Reduce the speed! The toads are crossing the road”.
When the volunteers find one of the creatures, they collect it, place it in a plastic cube and record a fact before depositing it in the grass on the other side.
“How nice!” He exclaimed one of the volunteers, referring to how the toad cling to his pink glove.
In the Sestoretsk swamp reserve, “the toads migrate from the forest to the bay in spring, reproduce in the reeds of the coastal strip, put eggs and then, at some point in mid -May, leave the water and migrate back to the forest,” said Milta.
“So they cross this road twice”he added.
The members of this brigade have been offering their time since 2016, he said Samuta ViktoriaChief of the Environmental Education Section of the Directorate of Protected Areas of St. Petersburg.
Depending on the weather, the work begins in mid -April and continues for a month or more, he said, with more than 700 volunteers participating every year.
Last year, Samuta said the volunteers helped move thousands of specimens.
“It is very good that in recent years there are more and more people willing to help living beings”he said. “Our mission is precisely to make people love our nature more and more and be willing to help it.”
The Volunteer Diana Kulinichenko described him as a pleasant rest of his studies.
“I’ve been complaining the whole semester that I want to go to the forest,” said Kulinichenko. “And here is the forest, the toads, aids to the toads, you are in the forest, you breathe clean air. And I really want to be voluntary, so after this I will look for where I can do it else.”