As soon as it gets warmer at night, frogs, toads, newts and salamanders return to their spawning grounds. In warmer areas such as the Main region, amphibians are already sporadically on the move, said species protection expert Uwe Friedel from the Bund Naturschutz (BN) in Nuremberg. This could increase further in the coming week depending on the weather. The Naturschutzbund Deutschland (Nabu) expects the peak of the amphibian migration in two to four weeks.
First there were grass frogs and newts, Friedel explained. The toads followed later. “Those are the ones that come in batches.” On their way, the amphibians often cross roads and are run over. According to Nabu, it is estimated that several hundred thousand of the protected animals die each year. Every spring, around 6,000 volunteers from the Bavarian Nature Conservation Union help to set up protective fences along the roads and carry buckets of frogs and the like across the road.
Also this year, BN, Nabu and local groups are looking for helpers all over Germany to check the buckets dug into the protective fences in the morning and in the evening and to identify and count the amphibians that have fallen in there. This provides important information about the development of the population, explains Friedel.
Of the 21 native amphibians in Germany, nine are considered endangered according to the Red List, three are on the early warning list. Experts also suspect that the stocks of species that were previously considered common, such as common toads and common frogs, have declined sharply, explained Nabu expert Sascha Schleich. This is probably also related to the dry summers in recent years, said BN specialist Friedel. “We are curious to see whether the rather wet summer of last year will be reflected in rising numbers.” In general, however, the living conditions for amphibians in Germany have deteriorated, as wet habitats have been lost due to drainage, development and the climate crisis.