It's Mating Season in Philadelphia
Most spring evenings since 2009, hundreds of volunteers like Mr. Howard have taken turns manning the barricades in the Roxborough section of the city, armed with an unusual city permit to close off sections of two streets when the toads hit the roads. The mission: to prevent them from being squished by cars.
Toads sit in a volunteer's bucket waiting to be brought across the road.
The American toads are migrating from their winter shelters in the woods of a nature preserve to an abandoned reservoir across the street, where they mate and lay eggs. Their tiny offspring return to the woods after several weeks, continuing the cycle—if they make it alive. The roads close for returns, too.
Lisa Levinson started the detour after realizing several years back that the fallen leaves she thought she saw on her drive home from work as a movement therapist were actually toads—and many were being killed.
Ms. Levinson tried to pull the plug on that real-life game of Frogger. She started carrying toads across the road and signaling drivers to slow down. A police officer finally positioned her squad car to stop traffic after Ms. Levinson showed her a dying toad. That sparked the idea for a detour.
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To reduce conflict with drivers, the Toad Detour operates by a "Toad Code" that bars volunteers from using profanity and from drinking alcohol at their outposts.
The Toad Detour has largely been embraced. Volunteers say most drivers respond positively when told about the toads, and some return as volunteers.
The city has issued a street-closing permit—the only such permit for wildlife crossing, according to a spokeswoman for the streets department. The city also posted a permanent yellow sign with a silhouette of a toad to alert drivers: "Toad Crossing, March-June."
More: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324240804578414810354690112.html
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Beautiful. Amplexus, anyone?
If it exists, there is porn of it.
