Zach's Letter
Dear Star and Sheffield Telegraph readers,
Please can you all slow down on Whitely Wood road near Forge Dam for the next four weeks? Sometime then, the toads will be crossing. They have a mass exodus across the road from Whitely Woods to Wiremill Dam (by the small car park) to their ancestral breeding ground in the pond. I expect many of you may not think toads are that important, but they are declining because twenty tonnes of toads are squished by cars when crossing the road each year.
Because over 1000 toads cross Whitely Wood Road on a couple of nights in late February or early March, the Wildlife Trust have said this crossing is nationally important and it’s an “official toad crossing” on the froglife website www.froglife.org.uk.
It all happens so quickly, hundreds can be killed in a few hours. When the Friends of the Porter Valley see the toads being squashed, they ring people up to help. Me and my mum have found a kind printer to do some free warning signs for the toads and 10 people have volunteered to wear those bright jackets to tell traffic to slow down. There are only 100 toad patrols in the whole country and we are one of them. I want to be there if it’s not too late at night, but they need more help.
Maybe you could drive slowly, offer to help or join the Friends of the Porter Valley like we did?
Thank you
Zach Smith age 11
