On the Cape Peninsula hundreds of tiny little endangered western leopard toadlets as small as a finger nail have started the beginning of their terrestrial life with an overwhelming 1 kilometer hike from the breeding ponds to our gardens.
Please don’t take them back to the pond!! Can you imagine hiking all the way up Table Mountain only for somebody to pick you up and take you back to the beginning for you to do it all over again?
If they are leaving the pond, then it means that they have completed their metamorphosis and are in search of food and shelter in a garden within 1 kilometer of the breeding pond. They will carry on hiking until they’ve found that suitable spot with few of their siblings around them to reduce competition for food and shelter.
If you are lucky enough to have them in your garden, please ensure that your garden is a safe haven for them and only move them out of danger but not far away from where you find them.. they are migratory animals and are remembering where they go from the get-go!
This is how you can help:
- Please check your swimming pools every morning for toadlets especially after rain
- Check courtyards/walled obstacles where they get stuck in and frizzle out in the sun
- Check gutters and drainpipes where they fall down and can’t get out
- Check driveways when they are migrating to not run them over as you drive out (only during rain)
- Put a rock at the step of your pool and a piece of polystyrene in your pool sump
- Remove your pool skimmer for the next month or two
- Place a rock in your dog’s water bowl
- Don’t mow your grass for the next month especially on rainy days
- Throw some veggie scraps in your garden.. at this size they eat the tiny mites that eat the veggies or plant a vegetable garden
- Lay piles of wood in your garden, this creates shelter from the heat as well as food with mites that eat the decaying wood
Install a toadsaver on a sunny day.
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