Students save salamanders from death

This music video from the Netherlands is called Harry Sacksioni – De Paddentrek (Toad Migration).

Translated from Vroege Vogels radio in the Netherlands today:

Behind VHL college in Leeuwarden [in Friesland province] is a small river, the Potmarge. In early spring small amphibians there in the morning and the evening cross in order to reproduce. There, they cross the bike path on which they are often crushed by cyclists and scooter riders. Alumni Carlijn Lanrijssens and her classmate Tariq Stark sometimes found thirty killed smooth newts on the bike path. “We thought that really can not go on next to a green college. Moreover, it is unique that there is such a large population of newts so close to downtown,” said Carlijn.

Tariq and Carlijn took the initiative to rescue the animals. With the help of the municipality of Leeuwarden, two 130-meter fences were placed along the Potmarge. On both sides of them thirty buckets were buried. A group of students now twice a day bends over the buckets to free the salamanders and to transfer them safely. Sometimes they also find unfortunate frogs and toads. In each bucket is a stick or a twig. “In that way, mice can climb out.” Students register numbers and sex of the salamanders, to understand the size of the population.

Across the country with the help of volunteers last year more than 270,000 amphibians were transferred.

For some salamanders, finding a mate is a marathon. Treadmill, genetic tests show amphibians travel several kilometers to reproduce. By Laurel Hamers, 7:15pm, December 20, 2016: here.