Frog re-location

After reading RAUKeforum's post titled 'Will they do the Hokey croakey' I thought now would be a good time to mention this.

My son goes to a Junior school very near to where we live . Well, last year I catch wind of a story saying that the school pond is going to be filled in to allow the building of three new class rooms.

"Why build where the pond is? ", I thought. After all , this school has plenty of unused land.

Straight away I'm on the case , and go to talk to the pretentious head mistress. In her Usual patronished way she say's , "Weeeeell Mr Hyde , I do understand your concerns , but we must progress ".

I tell her that what she is about to do will cause serious problems for the wildlife now dependant on that pond , and also that in these changing times I think she is sending out the wrong message to the children of the school.

"Mrs Watts, you have a pond built , this pond becomes a haven for wildlife . Then.. you spend many days walking around this pond showing the pupils the life that it holds , and now those same children will be looking out of the classroom window watching those creatures being buried alive by bulldozers. Woyuld you fill in this hole if it was full of Puppies or Kittens?"

All this fell on deaf ears , and myself and my family spent three weekends wallowing in pond sludge trying to rescue as much as we could . We managed to get numeous Dragon fly nymphs , over 100 newts , and over 100 frogs Here is just a small number of the frogs saved

 

 

And here are some of the newts

Well sure enough this Spring where the pond used to be was a scene of absolute carnage . Dead amphibs everywhere (The ones we'd missed) , and spawn dried up in the earth where the pond used to be.

Well , the Easter assembley just made me fume . There she stood , the head mistress in her 'ooooh soooo sincere 'way , talking to the children and parents about how the school loved this time of year as all gods little creatures emerged . "New life is everywhere!" she smiled. Now we will sing ,'All things Bright and Beautiful'.

"All things brightand beautiful , the coooorpses by the school,

All things wise and wonderfull, are dyyying without thier pool"

Well.... that's the version I sang

 

Right that's my rant , thanks for hearing me out folks.

My question is this ,Does anyone know if these amphibs we re-located will have survived? What's the success rate in Amphibian re-location.

Cheers folks,

Alan

Hi Mervyn , and thanks .

I did actually have alot of interest in exposing the school at the time. Various trusts that I phoned and local press all wanted to bring this into the light. But at the end of the day my Wife talked sense into me as it was obvious my son was suffering. His behaviour was ion a downslide as he picked up my anger towards the school and head mistress . Also , had trouble been stirred up by me , I expect the teachers would have given him a hard time.

I really had to bite my lip and just let this go for his sake .

Cheers,

Alan

Our local team turn out to be toads rather than frogs, and some were living in the bottom of the pond when the developer wanted to excavate. I got Dawlish Community College to come and clear the pond itself and its occupants to a new site they have started in their grounds.

Now the warm damp evenings have encouraged 40 or more local toads to return to the site of the pond-that-was and they find only black tarmac.

Can anyone tell me if there's any intervention advisable and what it would be, for those toads looking for their pond to leave spawn?

Please read this and reply.