Toad-venture

We've started a new adventure in our backyard recently. Mika has been talking about wanting to raise a frog from a tadpole for quite a while now. I have searched online but have only found non-native species (such as African frogs) in the "grow-a-frog" kits. Ideally, I want to grow a native and release it into the wild. After more thought, I decided that toads would be the better way to go (frogs kind of freak me out, but toads don't at all - - it's a "personal space and power" issue - plus, frogs eat caterpillars...). I called and e-mailed the Florida Fish and Wildlife organization and the UF extension office, however no one could provide any helpful information other than "look in a local pond and scoop up some tadpoles." Well, that's easy to say if you know (1) which type of pond to choose, (2) where in the pond to look, (3) the difference between frog and toad tadpoles, and (3 - the biggie) if you don't have two very small children who you need to watch and are afraid the alligator would like to "watch" as well...

So...I posted a "Wanted" ad on Craigs List offering money for tadpoles. The few responses I did receive were ridiculous and were clearly not from people who knew much (if anything) about toads. Another dead end!

At this point I decided to create my own toad habitat in hopes that we could attract some toads to lay eggs in our "pond" in the backyard. I researched the two main types of toads that are native to this area (southern toads and oak toads) and created a small shallow "pond" in a shaded area of our yard. We then decided to "relocate" some toads to see if we could increase our chances of having some toads leave some eggs for us. At dusk for the past two days, Mika and I went on "toad hunts" and rounded up some "volunteer toads" to live in our backyard. And yes, I realize that increasing our toad population could very well increase our snake population. Wish us luck! It would be really cool if Mika could see the entire life cycle from egg to frog.

The first night we "collected" toads, they sang from inside the bucket. It was really cool. Mika and I had listened to the toad calls online earlier that day, so it was a great opportunity to reinforce that information. When I was a kid, I don't recall toads singing like that when I caught them (though I caught different types of toads because I grew up in New England). Unfortunately, we didn't listen to the calls again online until the next morning and I couldn't recall which type of toad they sounded like (oaks or southerns). That would have been such an easy way to identify them! Oh well...

The second night we "collected" toads, we decided to take pictures of them so we could take our time identifying them the next day. I don't like keeping them in captivity very long; my goal is catch and release ASAP. I haven't had time to research them yet, but will do so soon and post the information here. In the meantime, I have attached some pictures. We placed the Sprite can in the bucket so we could determine size later. The big one seemed HUGE when we found it in our neighbor's yard, however he didn't seem nearly as big once we set the Sprite can next to him (which made me happy that we decided to have a reference for size).