Roads Near Wetlands are a Major Death Trap for Pond Breeding Amphibians During Breeding Migrations

Overview

Amphibians need to have moist skin and be able to move between habitats to gather different resources such as food and shelter and to breed. For this project I did a survey of amphibians killed on a stretch of road in Arcata, CA after each rain. This road bisects a large wetland area and is near prime upland habitat. I found a minimum of 74 amphibians had died over the 3 month study period due to being hit by vehicles. Using data from this study, I estimated that 148 amphibians could be dying each rainy season on the study road and based on this I estimated a total of 5,976 amphibians could be dying over 5.51 miles on roads occurring near wetlands in the Arcata city limits. There are many potential solutions to this problem including structures guiding amphibians to areas with safe passage, public awareness and education, and creating a volunteer safe passage team to physically move amphibians across the road during the rainy season.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Earth & Environmental Sciences (Track 2) (Junior Division) · Entry J-09-12

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