CARS, not chainsaws, may be the biggest threat to the survival of North American frogs and toads. Globally, habitat loss is assumed to be the main factor eating away at amphibian populations, but in rural Canada, at least, traffic is the bigger danger.
Felix Eigenbrod of Carleton University in Ottawa and his colleagues surveyed 38 ponds in the countryside, estimating frog and toad numbers by visual searches in the day and listening for calls at night. They also recorded the amount of intact forest and wetland within 2 kilometres of the ponds, and the volume of road traffic in the…
