The SPLAT Project Amphibian Tunnel

Monitoring Movements through the Tunnel

2012-01-26T15:38:00.000-08:00

We chose two methods to find out whether amphibians are using the new tunnel as a safe passage under the highway.

Method 1:

We marked amphibians that we caught in the forest on each side of the highway. We gave animals on the west side a different colour than the ones on the east side. We set up traps at each end of the tunnel, to intercept some of the amphibians as they exited, while not blocking others from entering in the opposite direction. We caught the ones that were intercepted and checked to see if they were marked on the opposite side of the road. If so, we gave them a second mark so we wouldn’t count them twice if we happened to catch them again.

Trap and fence to intercept amphibians exiting the tunnel in the foreground

Juvenile Red-legged Frog with foot marked in two colours after moving through tunnel

Results so far:

We caught 22 marked frogs and salamanders on the opposite side of the highway after they crossed through the tunnel. That’s exciting, but on closer examination we realize it’s a relatively low percentage of the total number we marked – over 380. One explanation is that lots of marked amphibians may have avoided our tunnel traps. Another is that they may have decided not to cross through the tunnel.

We also caught lots of unmarked amphibians, but we're not sure if they came from the opposite side, or turned away from the tunnel entrance on the same side. Our second monitoring method will help us decide how many amphibians actually moved through and which explanation about the marked ones is true.

Method 2:

We set up a remote camera to photograph animals inside the tunnel. This is more labour intensive than you’d think. Amphibians are cold-blooded so they don’t trigger infrared camera sensors in the same way that people, bears or mice would. We had to set the cameras to take a picture every minute and now we’re looking through thousands of images.

Results so far:

We still have more images to look at before we can compare numbers crossing each night with the numbers caught in traps, but, so far, we have photographed 30 different frogs and salamanders in the tunnel over 50 nights. Here are some of the images taken in the tunnel. Look carefully for the frogs & salamanders… they are little.

We also saw some warm-blooded animals moving through….

Whoa, how'd you fit in there!

We plan to continue monitoring when the weather warms up this spring. Stay tuned for more results as they become available.

In the meantime, for more information on monitoring salamanders using tunnels, check out this interesting publication of research done at Waterton Lakes National Park.

Leading Frogs and Salamanders to the Tunnel

2011-10-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

In addition to describing the installation of the tunnel, we would like to explain how we set up fences to guide amphibians to the tunnel entrances.

There are lots of different types of fencing materials to choose from: cement, wood, metal, plastic mesh, PVC or Big O pipe cut in half, landscape cloth, etc. ACO Systems Ltd even makes a specially designed fence product for amphibians (http://www.acousa.com/wildlife/index.htm).

For now, we decided to stick with the clear plastic sheeting (6-mil polyethylene) that we have used for roadside barriers. We knew it would successfully block Red-legged Frogs, Northwestern Salamanders, Rough-skinned Newts and Western Red-backed Salamanders. Pacific Treefrogs can climb over it, but they seem to be able to climb everything!

The clear 6-mil polyethylene lasts a long time in the shade (our roadside fences have lasted six years), and it’s inexpensive. We decided to keep our investment low until we see how well the new tunnel works.

We cut pieces that were 50 cm tall and attached them to wooden stakes with duct tape and thumbtacks. We dug the lower edge of the plastic 10 cm under the soil so that salamanders and frogs could not burrow beneath it.

It is important to position fences on angles that direct animals toward the tunnel entrance, rather than placing them perpendicular to the direction that amphibians are travelling. We angled fencing at 20 to 45 degrees from the edge of the road into the forest for up to 60 m.

The topography was uneven so it was a challenge to keep the fence taut. We chose the path of least resistance, but still needed to cut away a few logs and several small roots. We piled soil up on top of the plastic in places where we could not bury it under large roots.

Connecting the plastic to the tunnel entrance was easy because the box culvert has straight vertical walls. It also helped to have a thick layer of dirt on the floor of the tunnel. We extended each plastic fence about 1 metre into the tunnel, dug it into the dirt, and held it against the wall and ceiling with wooden stakes and wire. This created a smooth transition from plastic to concrete wall.

We are monitoring amphibian movements along the fences and through the tunnel this fall. Our next post will describe our monitoring techniques and some of the results to-date.

Installation Completed!

2011-05-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

The second half of the tunnel was put in place last Wednesday and repaving happened today. Here are some more photos to demonstrate how smoothly the whole process went.

May 4, 8:00 AM: The excavator uncovered some large pieces of wood only about 0.5 m deep in the road bed on the west side.

Fortunately, the deeper material was good and gravelly.

9:00 AM: The base was compacted quickly after adding crush and checking the height.

Two and a half more sections of culvert were lifted into place to complete the 13.4-m tunnel.

The most gruelling part of the job - filling the inside of each section with substrate 0.3 m deep to make the interior of the tunnel level with the ditch.

12:30 PM: Several truck loads of "pit run" delivered to cover the culvert. Loads came quickly one after another from a quarry just a few hundred metres from the site.

14:00 PM: Substrate at the entrance of the tunnel was compacted and sloped away to prevent water from pooling inside.

15:00 PM: Compacting the road surface so it could be left until the repaving crew arrived.

10 May, 9:00 AM: A paving crew arrived from Nanaimo to do our job as well as some others on the west coast.

The first layer of asphalt applied smoothly over the prepared surface.

Torching the first layer to dry it before applying the next.

12:00 PM: Finishing the second layer.

12:15 PM: Installation Completed! We'd like to express a huge thank you to Simon Stubbs, Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure, for overseeing the installation. Simon, you rock!!! More thanks to come in our next post.

Day One of the Tunnel Installation

2011-05-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

One half of the amphibian tunnel was installed today!! These pictures tell the story:

7:15 AM: Safety meeting with the site safety coordinator .

7:30 AM: Setting out safety cones and signage.

7:35 AM: Laying out lines for the trench.

7:55 AM: Rock-hammer punching through the pavement along the lines.

A red squirrel come running out of the forest to perch, inquisitively, on the roadside fence. Rock-hammers do sound somewhat like a the trill of a squirrel, only much louder!

9:00 AM: Excavating the top layer of pavement before digging the trench.

Carefully making the trench size match the layout.

10:00 AM: Adding crushed gravel over the bottom of the trench.

A hydraulic hoe-packer compacting the "crush" before it is raked smooth.

Making sure the base is at the right level.

12:30 PM: Loading the trailer with culvert pieces that had been stored at a nearby gravel yard.

Delivering the culvert pieces to where the crane waited to lift them into the trench.

Each piece weighs over 19,100 pounds or 8.6 tonnes.

Lining the first piece up on the centre line of the highway.

Filling each culvert piece with natural substrate, slid down the board to the back end.

Natural substrate is a mix of soil from the forest floor (called "overburden" in the quarry industry) and crushed gravel.

Downed wood and litter placed on top of substrate in each section.

Lifting in the second section of culvert.

Lining the sections up to fit snuggly.

No gasket or seal was needed because the culvert will not carry water.

13:50 PM: Lifting in the third section of culvert.

Adding and compacting "crush" around the box culvert.

16:15 PM: Culvert fully buried to the shoulder. Rip rap will be added tomorrow.

16:30 PM: Metal plate laid over top makes it secure to drive over.

Sure hope the frogs and salamanders will like it!

The Arrival of the Tunnel

2011-03-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

Today, we’re celebrating the arrival of a six-pack of large concrete tunnel pieces that are intended to become a well-used passageway for frogs and salamanders under Highway 4.

Langley Concrete and Tile Ltd cast the box-shaped structures that will fit together to form a 13.5-m long tunnel under the highway. There are five and a half pieces to join. Each full piece measures 2.2 m wide, 1.3 m tall and 2.4 m long, and weighs over 7 tonnes. The sixth piece is half the length and weight of the others.

It took a mighty machine and skilled operators to lift the pieces off the B-train transport truck. Using chains and specialized hooks, called “clutches”, a front-end loader carefully moved each piece to where it will be stored until installation happens later this spring.

“Why concrete?” you ask. Indeed, it is heavier and more expensive to make and move than plastic or metal. It has advantages, though, when it comes to providing a spacious passageway under a shallow road-bed. Concrete is strong enough to hold up traffic (literally!) with only a small amount of material covering it to the road surface.

While the transport driver watched the off-loading, he described his step-daughter’s excitement about him delivering a tunnel for frogs. “She loves collecting frogs, identifying them and writing about them in her journal”, he said. A budding herpetologist, no doubt. We invited him to bring her along next September to see the frog migration and the new tunnel in action.

The ABCs of Designing an Amphibian Tunnel

2010-11-14T20:51:00.000-08:00

Over 40 years ago, people were alarmed by large numbers of roadkill or “splats” on Switzerland’s highways and started building tunnels for amphibians. Through trial and error, Europeans, the British, and more recently, North Americans have been coaxing frogs and salamanders to go under roads rather than over them.

It turns out that some species readily move through culverts and tunnels while others do not. The reasons vary.

German biologist Ulrich Sinsch discovered that newts use aboveground landmarks and celestial cues to find their way around forest and fields. Going underground through a tunnel could be very disorienting.

Cold-blooded amphibians are sensitive to temperature. They become dormant when it gets cold. British biologist Rob Oldham showed that toads were reluctant to move through tunnels that were colder than above ground temperatures.

It is possible to make tunnels less disorienting and the same temperature as the surroundings. In fact, people who have reviewed tunnels around the world suggest that large sizes (minimum 1 m in diameter) let in lots of light and airflow and work best for most species.

Other important design features include diverting runoff to prevent water from flowing though the tunnel, moist natural soil substrates, and straight walls easy for frogs to follow.

Our goal is to build a tunnel that meets all the recommendations learned from past projects and fits within the roadbed at the peak amphibian crossing point on Highway 4.

Road surveyors measured the height of the road last spring. It’s a shallow roadbed with the road surface only 60 cm higher than the normal water level in the ditches. This limits the options for installing a large enough tunnel.

We reviewed a variety of prefabricated tunnels/culverts available in B.C. We looked at both open-bottom metal culverts and concrete box tunnels. By far the best option for size and straight walls is a concrete box tunnel, 1.8 m wide by 0.9 m tall (interior dimensions). Safety standards require at least 22.5 cm of cover and 5 cm of asphalt over top of the culvert. This means we will have to dig the culvert into the ground and fill it with substrate to the height of the water level. The end result will be a tunnel that is .42 m tall. That’s taller than most Red-legged frogs jump. We hope the large width will compensate for the lack of height in letting in adequate light and air circulation.

We are working with the Ministry of Transportation to plan the installation of the experimental tunnel this winter. We will spend next year testing how well it works. Fingers crossed.

Why did the Red-legged Frog cross the road?

2010-11-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

To get to the other side, of course! No one has been able to get a straight answer out of the frogs on this question, but a number of people have tracked their movements over wide areas. In Oregon, Marc Hayes and his colleagues caught and marked Red-legged Frogs at a breeding pond in February and then recaptured one 4.8 km away, six months later. This frog likely traveled back to breed at the same pond the following winter.

No one knows exactly why frogs move so far. Perhaps it is to find better food and shelter. Or maybe to escape from predators. It's likely a combination of factors. One thing we do know, if there is a road to cross along the way, frogs will attempt it. Unfortunately, not all of them make it, without some help.

This year, since August 31, the Wetland Stewards for Clayoquot and Barkley Sounds have safely moved 400 Red-legged Frogs across Highway 4. Most were juveniles, dispersing 500 m away from the shallow lake where they were born last spring. Some were adults returning to the breeding site.

We installed plastic fences along 90-m sections of the highway to block frog access to the road. We caught, measured and marked each individual at the fence before releasing it on the opposite side of the road. We rarely caught the same individual again. Juveniles moved on to wherever they will spend time, over the next two to four years, before returning to breed at the lake. Adults moved towards the lake where they will breed in February.

The fencing works well except that it prevents the natural migration and dispersal behaviour of frogs, unless people are involved in catching and moving them across the road. A better solution would be a raised highway or a series of tunnels to provide safe passage under the road.

The Wetland Stewards are working with the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to design an experimental tunnel. Our first step was to decide where to install the tunnel. To answer that question we asked: "Where did the Red-legged Frog cross the road?" That's a relatively easy question to answer.

By surveying the 40-km highway between Ucluelet and Tofino by car on warm rainy nights from 2000 to 2004, we located the highest concentration of roadkill along a 1.5-km stretch. Searching on foot, we found the highest concentrations within that 1.5-km stretch. In 2005, we set up the 90-m barrier fences to catch frogs and pinpoint where the majority of crossings occur. Now we know where that is, and we're designing a tunnel that will fit the roadbed at that location. More about that in the next post.

The SPLAT Project

2010-09-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

The SPLAT Project aims to prevent highway traffic from reducing populations of frogs and salamanders along Highway 4 on the west coast of Vancouver Island, B.C. Our blog is a way of sharing what we know (and don't know) about how to monitor and mitigate amphibian roadkill in our part of the world. We are keen to provide links to information from similar projects elsewhere.

Local volunteers started the SPLAT project in 2000 after noticing squished remains ("splats") of many frogs and salamanders during rainy nights. After surveying the 40-km highway repeatedly, we identified the major concentration of "splats" within half a kilometer of a 4-ha wetland. Red-legged Frogs (Rana aurora), Pacific Treefrogs (Pseudacris regilla), Northwestern Salamanders (Ambystoma gracile) and Roughskin Newts (Taricha granulosa) breed in the wetland in late-winter and spring and then spend the rest of the year in the surrounding forests. Young of the year emerge from the wetlands in late summer. All ages risk becoming "splats" when they cross the highway to move between the breeding/rearing site and forest habitats.

Researchers and volunteers with the SPLAT Project have been moving live amphibians across Highway 4 over the past five years. We catch frogs and salamanders in pitfall traps along temporary plastic fences in three different locations. We are now working with the B.C. Ministry of Transportation to design an experimental amphibian tunnel at the location where we consistently catch the highest number of amphibians. A road survey, literature review and on-going discussion are all part of designing an appropriate tunnel. Future posts will describe this work and the actual installation process as it unfolds.

We have formalized ourselves into a non-profit society called The Association of Wetland Stewards for Clayoquot and Barkley Sounds. This project still falls under the title "SPLAT" which is affectionately known as the "Society for the Prevention of Little Amphibian Tragedies".