Our Western Toad Monitoring Project at Alice Lake Provincial Park is well underway. Soon the toadlets will be gathering at the edge of Edith and Fawn lakes to begin their migration into the forest. A key goal of the project is to monitor the timing and location of the toadlet migration, to mitigate potential impacts from trail hikers and bikers.
Do you hike the Four Lakes Trail?
We are looking for volunteers to help keep an eye out for toadlets along the Four Lakes Trail over the coming month. There are two ways to contribute:
- Join our group of scheduled volunteers. Sign up to hike on your choice of day(s). Having scheduled volunteers helps ensure that we have eyes on the ground every day.
- Report toad sightings on an ad hoc basis while out hiking.
What to Do (when you find migrating toads)
- Take one or more photos and a GPS point if possible (a photo with iPhone will automatically be geo-referenced).
- Record the date, time and weather when photos and observations are made.
- Note the section of trail where toad activity is occurring. This can be done by:
- Using a GPS in the field
- Printing an Alice Lake park map (http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/alice_lk/alicelake.pdf) and circling the affected area
- Drawing points or circles around the affected area in Google Earth.
- Record a rough estimate of the number of live toadlets observed (i.e. 1-10, 11-100, 101-500, 500+)
- Note whether or not any dead toadlets were observed and record a rough estimate of the number of dead toadlets using same categories.
Submit Your Observations
- Record and submit your observations via iNaturalist or;
- Record manually and email to: toads@squamishenvironment.ca