Don’t persecute frogs for their singing
This column features everything you need to know about The Guttural Toads.
THE first rains of the season have started to fall, and it has woken up the toads! The Guttural Toads have dusted off their vocal cords, and have begun to sing throughout the night. And they’re just getting started…I have already started getting phone-calls from people, to complain about the ‘noise’ the toads are making, and I am receiving requests to remove and relocate them.
I am always left scratching my head after these calls. Sure, the noise levels of one to two dozen toads gets a little loud, but as I always tell people, isn’t it always better than listening to a neighbour’s loud music, their shouting or the sound of traffic?
There’s good reason to ‘put up’ with the frog choruses. Firstly, it means that your garden isn’t a toxic wasteland, like many suburban gardens are becoming through pave-overs and use of pesticides. If you have a frog population, you’re obviously doing something right in the garden for them to feel welcome.
Maybe you have a healthy insect population? That’s good, but of course, you don’t want to have an over-population of insects swarming around you which is why you should appreciate and tolerate the frogs and their choruses. They are feasting on the insects in your garden, including the mosquitoes!
Frogs are so important for insect control, and because they’re so good at what they do, you don’t need to spray your garden with poisons. They’re also a food source for birds, snakes and a host of invertebrates.
They’re trying to be romantic
Toads do have the habit of breeding in swimming pools, which isn’t ideal but breeding in chlorinated swimming pools is usually unsuccessful. I do not think there is a sure-fire way of keeping toads out of your swimming pool, unless you have a cover (not a standard net). Installing a pond, if you don’t have one, may help, and hopefully they will choose to use that instead.
If you’re removing toads from your pool, please do not resort to cruelty in ‘getting rid of them’.
I have had people proudly tell me how they hit toads out of their properties with tennis rackets and golf clubs, almost as if it’s a game.
ALSO READ: ‘Toad’ ally freaky for frogs – Waterlily frogs
If you have a stream on the other side of your fence, a conservancy/reserve opposite or bordering your property, putting them in a bucket and releasing them there would be your best bet.
And please don’t drive the poor things to the other side of town, as they tend to try and hop back to where they were.
It’s not just the Guttural Toads that have woken up. I’ve been hearing the “buzz…yack yack” call of the Natal Tree Frog, and the whistling calls of the Bushsqueakers, calling from the leaf-litter.
The Painted Reed Frogs, with their short, high-pitched call will start soon, as well the many other colourful species we’re lucky to have around us.
Nick Evans works at the KwaZulu-Natal Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, and is Highway’s snake catcher.
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