WE HELPED MORE THAN 20 THOUSANDS

Amphibians spend the winter hibernating. From spring to autumn, they migrate between different habitats. In the spring they migrate along established routes and they look for suitable water environments (spawning places) for laying eggs, from which tadpoles or larvae hatch after a few weeks.

By autumn, however, most amphibians move to the forest again, to their wintering grounds (in the ground under leaves, in rocks, tree stumps, etc.), as the forest area provides them with shelter during hibernation.

The most numerous migrations take place in the spring. Therefore in the Radensko Polje Landscape Park on the road between Veliko Mačevo and Veliko Račna, Frog patrols, named “Let’s help the frogs across the road,” have been organized since 2008. From 2021, we carry out Frog patrols as part of the LIFE AMPHICON project. With the help of firefighters from PGD Račna and PGD Čušperk we established a one-kilometer-long temporary protective fence for amphibians on February the 22nd. For further twenty-three nights, with the help of many volunteers, equipped with lights, buckets and reflective vests, we checked the temporary protective fence and helped the amphibians safely to the other side of the road. We would like to thank all the volunteers who helped us save thousands of amphibians this year.

For the technical support, we would like to thank the Municipality of Grosuplje and the Symbiosis Institute, who, by lending us a kilometer-long temporary protective fence for amphibians, enabled us to carry out the campaign and thereby helped us protect and preserve amphibians and raise people’s awareness of the importance of amphibians. The temporary safety fence will soon be replaced by more permanent measures.

At the end of the year, as part of the LIFE AMPHICON project, the placement of a permanent protective fence and underpasses for amphibians will begin on some sections of the regional road between Veliko Mlačevo and Veliko Račno. In this way, amphibians will be able to cross the road safely in the long term, to the spawning grounds in the spring, and back to the forest wintering grounds in the summer and autumn.

Although the temporary safety fence protects only a third of the entire road section where the amphibians cross from the forest to the Radensko polje, thousands of amphibians are still transferred across the road every year. In 2021, we transferred more than 18,000 amphibians over the road, in 2022 over 16,000, and this year we transferred as many as 20.500 amphibians in a total of twenty-three nights. Of these, Bufo bufo were the most numerous (19.826 individuals or 97%), and this year, in addition to Rana temporaria and Rana dalmatina (602 individuals), Hyla arborea (68 individuals), Pelophylax sp. (43 individuals), Lissotriton vulgaris (4 individuals) and Ichthyosaura alpestris (1 individual), 2 individuals of Triturus carnifex also present next to the temporary protective fence. This species is also one of the target species of the LIFE AMPHICON project.

Photo: LIFE AMPHICON Archive