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A Russian Bucket Brigade Helps Toads and Frogs Cross the Road to Get to a Spawning Site

News Feed
Thursday, April 17, 2025

A NATURE RESERVE NEAR SESTRORETSK, Russia (AP) — It happens every spring along a section of road north of Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg: Volunteers, many in yellow vests, patrol near the Sestroretsk Bog nature reserve.They serve as crossing guards for thousands of toads and frogs, who are trying to navigate toward their spawning sites.There usually isn’t much traffic, but even the relatively low number of vehicles still would kill up to 1,000 toads each year, said Konstantin Milta, senior herpetology researcher with the St. Petersburg Zoological Institute.“On large highways, the death rate is monstrous. Sometimes the surface of the road can be covered with a layer of dead animals,” Milta told The Associated Press.On this section, a large reddish-orange sign that features one of the amphibians warns motorists: “Attention! Slow down! Toads are crossing the road.”When the volunteers find one of the creatures, they pick it up, put it in a plastic bucket and make a record before depositing it in the grass on the other side.“So cute!” one of the volunteers said, referring to how the toad clung to her pink glove.In the Sestroretsk Bog reserve, “toads migrate from the forest to the bay in the spring, reproduce in the reed beds in the coastal strip, lay eggs, and then, somewhere in mid-May, they leave the water and migrate back to the forest,” Milta said. “So they cross this road twice,” he added.Members of this bucket brigade have been volunteering their time since 2016, said Viktoria Samuta, head of the environmental education section of the Directorate of Protected Areas of St. Petersburg.Depending on the weather, the work begins in mid-April and continues for a month or longer, she said, with more than 700 volunteers take part every year.Last year, Samuta said, volunteers helped move thousands of specimens.“It is very good that in recent years there have been more and more people ready to help living beings,” she said. “Our mission is, precisely, to make people love our nature more and more, and be willing to help it.”Volunteer Diana Kulinichenko called it a nice break from her studies.“I’ve been whining all semester that I want to go to the forest," Kulinichenko said. "And here’s the forest, the toads, you help the toads, you’re in the forest, you breathe clean air. And I just really want to volunteer, so after this I’ll be looking for where else I can do it.”Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

It happens every spring along a section of road north of Russia’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg: Volunteers, some in yellow vests, patrol near the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve, and become crossing guards for thousands of toads and frogs

A NATURE RESERVE NEAR SESTRORETSK, Russia (AP) — It happens every spring along a section of road north of Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg: Volunteers, many in yellow vests, patrol near the Sestroretsk Bog nature reserve.

They serve as crossing guards for thousands of toads and frogs, who are trying to navigate toward their spawning sites.

There usually isn’t much traffic, but even the relatively low number of vehicles still would kill up to 1,000 toads each year, said Konstantin Milta, senior herpetology researcher with the St. Petersburg Zoological Institute.

“On large highways, the death rate is monstrous. Sometimes the surface of the road can be covered with a layer of dead animals,” Milta told The Associated Press.

On this section, a large reddish-orange sign that features one of the amphibians warns motorists: “Attention! Slow down! Toads are crossing the road.”

When the volunteers find one of the creatures, they pick it up, put it in a plastic bucket and make a record before depositing it in the grass on the other side.

“So cute!” one of the volunteers said, referring to how the toad clung to her pink glove.

In the Sestroretsk Bog reserve, “toads migrate from the forest to the bay in the spring, reproduce in the reed beds in the coastal strip, lay eggs, and then, somewhere in mid-May, they leave the water and migrate back to the forest,” Milta said.

“So they cross this road twice,” he added.

Members of this bucket brigade have been volunteering their time since 2016, said Viktoria Samuta, head of the environmental education section of the Directorate of Protected Areas of St. Petersburg.

Depending on the weather, the work begins in mid-April and continues for a month or longer, she said, with more than 700 volunteers take part every year.

Last year, Samuta said, volunteers helped move thousands of specimens.

“It is very good that in recent years there have been more and more people ready to help living beings,” she said. “Our mission is, precisely, to make people love our nature more and more, and be willing to help it.”

Volunteer Diana Kulinichenko called it a nice break from her studies.

“I’ve been whining all semester that I want to go to the forest," Kulinichenko said. "And here’s the forest, the toads, you help the toads, you’re in the forest, you breathe clean air. And I just really want to volunteer, so after this I’ll be looking for where else I can do it.”

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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Endangered sea turtle populations racing to recovery

A new global survey finds that endangered sea turtles show signs of recovery in a majority of places they are found worldwide.

Endangered sea turtles show signs of recovery in a majority of places where they’re found worldwide, according to a new global survey released Thursday.“Many of the turtle populations have come back, though some haven’t,” said Duke ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved with the research. “Overall, the sea turtle story is one of the real conservation success stories.”A hawksbill turtle underwater in Indonesia.APThe study looked at 48 populations of sea turtles around the world. Scientists measured the impacts of threats such as hunting, pollution, coastal development and climate change to the marine animals. In more than half of the areas studied, threats are declining overall, the study found.But there are some exceptions. Sea turtle populations in the Atlantic Ocean are more likely to be recovering than those in Pacific waters. And leatherback turtles are not faring as well as other species.Leatherback sea turtle on a beach in Trinidad.APGlobally, leatherbacks are considered vulnerable to extinction, but many groups are critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.All seven of the regions where leatherbacks are found face high environmental risks, said study co-author Bryan Wallace, a wildlife ecologist at Ecolibrium in Colorado.Leatherback turtles are famous for making the longest known marine migrations of any animal — with some individuals swimming as many as 3,700 miles (5,955 kilometers) each way. That feat moves them through a wide swath of regions and may expose them to unique risks, he said.A leatherback turtle in Trinidad.APMeanwhile, green turtles are still considered endangered globally, but their populations show signs of recovery in many regions of the world, researchers found.“By ending commercial harvests and allowing them time to rebound, their populations are now doing really well” in coastal waters off many regions of Mexico and the U.S., said co-author Michelle María Early Capistrán, a Stanford University researcher who has conducted fieldwork in both countries.A loggerhead turtle underwater in Belize.APSea turtles were protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973, and Mexico banned all captures of sea turtles in 1990. But it took a few decades for the results of these actions — alongside efforts to protect nesting beaches and reduce accidental bycatch in fishing — to show up in population trends, she said.Around the world, the problem of sea turtles dying after accidentally becoming entangled in fishing gear remains a major threat, said Wallace. New technologies are being developed to spare turtles, but they must be accepted and used regularly by diverse fishing communities to be effective, he added.A young olive Ridley turtle in Costa Rica in 2018.APThe survey was published in the journal Endangered Species Research and is the first update in more than a decade.-- Christina Larson / Associated Press

Animals
Climate
Conservation

Endangered Sea Turtle Populations Show Signs of Recovery in More Than Half the World, Survey Finds

A new global survey finds that endangered sea turtles show signs of recovery in a majority of places where they’re found worldwide

WASHINGTON (AP) — Endangered sea turtles show signs of recovery in a majority of places where they’re found worldwide, according to a new global survey released Thursday. “Many of the turtle populations have come back, though some haven’t,” said Duke ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved with the research. “Overall, the sea turtle story is one of the real conservation success stories." The study looked at 48 populations of sea turtles around the world. Scientists measured the impacts of threats such as hunting, pollution, coastal development and climate change to the marine animals. In more than half of the areas studied, threats are declining overall, the study found.But there are some exceptions. Sea turtle populations in the Atlantic Ocean are more likely to be recovering than those in Pacific waters. And leatherback turtles are not faring as well as other species. Globally, leatherbacks are considered vulnerable to extinction, but many groups are critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. All seven of the regions where leatherbacks are found face high environmental risks, said study co-author Bryan Wallace, a wildlife ecologist at Ecolibrium in Colorado. Leatherback turtles are famous for making the longest known marine migrations of any animal – with some individuals swimming as many as 3,700 miles (5,955 kilometers) each way. That feat moves them through a wide swath of regions and may expose them to unique risks, he said.Meanwhile, green turtles are still considered endangered globally, but their populations show signs of recovery in many regions of the world, researchers found.“By ending commercial harvests and allowing them time to rebound, their populations are now doing really well” in coastal waters off many regions of Mexico and the U.S., said co-author Michelle María Early Capistrán, a Stanford University researcher who has conducted fieldwork in both countries.Sea turtles were protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973, and Mexico banned all captures of sea turtles in 1990. But it took a few decades for the results of these actions – alongside efforts to protect nesting beaches and reduce accidental bycatch in fishing – to show up in population trends, she said.Around the world, the problem of sea turtles dying after accidentally becoming entangled in fishing gear remains a major threat, said Wallace. New technologies are being developed to spare turtles, but they must be accepted and used regularly by diverse fishing communities to be effective, he added.The survey was published in the journal Endangered Species Research and is the first update in more than a decade. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Animals
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Watch These Elephants Form an 'Alert Circle' as an Earthquake Shakes San Diego, Protecting Their Young at the Center

Footage from the San Diego Zoo Safari Park shows the large mammals huddling together around the herd's calves

Watch These Elephants Form an ‘Alert Circle’ as an Earthquake Shakes San Diego, Protecting Their Young at the Center Footage from the San Diego Zoo Safari Park shows the large mammals huddling together around the herd’s calves Sara Hashemi - Daily Correspondent April 17, 2025 11:14 a.m. Elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park huddled together, facing outward, in a behavior called an "alert circle" after an earthquake hit. Screenshot via San Diego Zoo Safari Park When a 5.2 magnitude earthquake shook their enclosure on Monday, a group of African elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park instinctively sprang into action to protect each other. The moment was caught on the camera as the quake rocked Southern California, offering a rare glimpse at how elephants react to danger. In the footage, the large mammals run around initially, then older elephants Ndlula, Umngani and Khosi move to form a ring around calves Zuli and Mkhaya, in what experts call an “alert circle.” Zuli tries to stay on the outside with the adults, in an apparent attempt to act courageously. His mother and another elephant who helped raise him pat him with their trunks, as if to say: “Things are OK,” and “stay back in the circle,” as Mindy Albright, a curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, tells Julie Watson at the Associated Press. Elephants are highly social animals, says Joshua Plotnik, an animal behavior researcher at Hunter College, to NPR’s Rebecca Rosman. Their instinct to band together is clear in the formation of the circle. “They bunch together, the adults on the outside facing out, and then they’ll push the younger individuals into the middle,” he says. Such a behavior is “a natural response to perceived threats that helps protect younger elephants and the herd as a whole,” writes the San Diego Zoo Safari Park on social media. “It’s so great to see them doing the thing we all should be doing—that any parent does, which is protect their children,” adds Albright to the AP. Research indicates African elephants can sense vibrations through their ears and feet. The massive animals create low-frequency seismic vibrations in the ground as they walk and vocalize. Other elephants may pick up on these signals, offering a long-distance form of communication. This ability likely helped them react to the quake. “For them to just be so in tune with their environment and paying attention to the environmental cues, it’s really something that you want to see them still hone in on,” Albright says to Kasha Patel at the Washington Post. “It’s a measure of their health to see them respond like this.” The footage is also a reminder of how much we still have to learn about the animals, adds Plotnik to NPR—and the importance of protecting them. African elephant populations have seen a drastic decline over the last 50 years. Asian elephant numbers, meanwhile, have dropped by half in three generations. “The Asian and African elephants are in imminent danger of going extinct, and it’s crucially important that we continue to learn more about their behavior and cognition if we’re going to come up with ways to protect them and conserve them in the wild,” Plotnik says to NPR. The behavior recently caught on video can offer scientists insight into elephants’ social responses to threats. An aftershock hit San Diego about an hour after the video was taken, and the animals repeated the behavior, according to the AP. But they went back to their daily lives once everything seemed safe. After the quake, the zoo writes, it was “business as usual” for the elephants again. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Animals
Business
Extinction

How the truth about supermarket salmon is being hidden – video

Salmon is often marketed as the sustainable, healthy and eco-friendly protein choice. But what you may not realise is that most of the salmon you buy is farmed, especially if you live in the UK, because Scottish salmon producers are no longer required to tell you. Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out why it is important for consumers to know where their salmon comes from, and examines the gap between the marketing of farmed salmon and the reality for our health, the environmental and animal welfareScottish government must do more to control salmon farming, inquiry findsScottish salmon producers allowed to remove ‘farmed’ from front of packagingNorway rules out fish farm ban despite ‘existential threat’ to wild salmon Continue reading...

Salmon is often marketed as the sustainable, healthy and eco-friendly protein choice. But what you may not realise is that most of the salmon you buy is farmed, especially if you live in the UK, because Scottish salmon producers are no longer required to tell you. Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out why it is important for consumers to know where their salmon comes from, and examines the gap between the marketing of farmed salmon and the reality for our health, the environmental and animal welfareScottish government must do more to control salmon farming, inquiry findsScottish salmon producers allowed to remove ‘farmed’ from front of packagingNorway rules out fish farm ban despite ‘existential threat’ to wild salmon Continue reading...

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Of honeybees and polar bears: Saving beloved species isn't enough — but it's a good start

We're always more likely to save the fuzzy animals first. Faced with a global crisis, that's not a bad thing

If you ask children or college students to draw pictures to illustrate climate change, chances are that polar bears will make an appearance. Since activists started fighting to protect the climate in the 1970s, certain animal species have become the poster children for various conservation movements. From images of polar bears drifting alone on melting sea ice to complex songs from whales taking over the radio airwaves to internet memes of sloths roaming their disappearing habitats, certain species rise to prominence in human perception, inspiring us to make changes and fight for their preservation.  Yet in the past 12 years, at least 467 species have gone extinct, with most of these creatures — including a type of rodent called the melomy and a Hawaiian tree snail called Achatinella apexfulva — quietly disappearing and utterly unknown to the vast majority of humans. In part as a result of watching species after species go extinct, climate change burnout, in which people are overwhelmed by the severity of the climate crisis, and climate doomerism, in which people see climate change as irreversible and destruction as inevitable, are both increasing. But in fact, history shows that humans do have the power to save animals on the brink of extinction. Such successes might be the most tangible representation of conservation that we have. Still, whether we rally behind a given animal species is largely based on whether we recognize parts of ourselves in them.  When we see "polar bears on melting glaciers, we have an empathetic response," said Susan Clayton, a conservation psychologist at the College of Wooster. “It’s one way to take this big, amorphous concept," meaning climate change, "and make it more understandable.” Whether we rally behind an animal is largely based on whether we recognize parts of ourselves in them. In conservation, the term "flagship species" is used to refer to animals that represent something bigger, like an entire ecosystem. For example, the polar bear represents the Arctic, sea turtles serve as ambassadors to the sea, the bald eagle is iconic to North America and the giant panda symbolizes conservation efforts in China.  Very often, these animals are larger mammals that live on land and share characteristics with humans. People are more likely to take action to protect a species if it is physically large and if they are flagship species. Singling in on particular species can also help make climate change seem more personal. Studies show, for example, that people are more likely to help a single person than they are to take action to support a statistically large but abstract number of victims.  “We are animals too, and as mammals with a certain biology, we are drawn to certain other species that have shared biological traits,” said Diogo Verissimo, a research fellow at the Environmental Change Institute. “It could also be, as is the case with the honeybee, that we seem to share their social structure in certain ways.” Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. Honeybees — which are once again making headlines after commercial beekeepers reported record colony losses this year — are another species humans tend to rally behind for various reasons. For one thing, they are undeniably fuzzy and widely considered appealing. Bees have been anthropomorphized on screen, in films like “Bee Movie,” and on cereal boxes. As nearly everyone knows, honeybees also live in complex intelligent societies and work tirelessly to complete their tasks — something many humans can identify with. They are also, not incidentally, highly useful to human society, producing honey and beeswax — both of which are used in a wide range of products — while also pollinating the plants that feed us. “We are more likely to pay attention to something if we think it’s useful to us,” as Clayton told Salon in a phone interview. “We have a sense that bees are important to our economy and provide us with useful services.” Much of the movement to "save the bees" in the U.S. has been focused on a single species: Apis mellifera, the European honeybee. As its suggests, this species was not originally native to North America. It was introduced to the U.S. via colonization, where it is now out-competing many native pollinator species and also spreading disease to other insects. Honeybees are essentially domesticated insects, and in fact are far less endangered than many of the species they are now pushing out. Nonetheless, activism on behalf of the honeybees may benefit other pollinators in some ways. For example, honeybee activism is partially responsible for some U.S. states and the European Union outlawing neonicotinoids, a highly toxic pesticide. (In one study in which 55 trees in Oregon were sprayed with neonicotinoids, it was estimated that up to 107,470 bees were killed.) Raising awareness about a species in peril is most effective if the messaging is delivered with an actionable item, such as urging legislators to outlaw a specific pesticide. Studies show that making people feel guilty about climate change can motivate change, while others have suggested that shame, fear and anger can motivate behavioral change as well. But such emotions can easily fuel hopelessness if people are constantly made aware of new and overwhelming threats that they feel powerless to address.  “Fear-type campaigns that appeal to things like guilt have been used frequently,” said Laura Thomas-Walters, deputy director of experimental research at the Yale University program on Climate Change Communication. “But they can also lead to disengagement. It can make people want to deny the problem or not look at the campaign, or question whether the messenger is trustworthy at all.” As our climate heats up, primarily because humans continue to burn fossil fuels, that increases the frequency and severity of natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes. Excessive heat alone now kills thousands of people each summer. We can expect hundreds more species to die off within the next decade if we do not take significant action to reduce emissions and enact further environmental protection.   Polar bear, Harbour Islands, Nunavut, Canada (Getty Images/Paul Souders)Yet the majority of U.S. adults rank climate change lower on their list of priorities compared to other threats like the state of the economy or health care costs. Our global society is juggling the looming threat of another pandemic, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and political turmoil. Many people report experiencing climate burnout — perhaps after years of trying to reduce their carbon footprint without seeing larger-scale changes from people in power. Although oil and gas production continued to increase during Joe Biden's administration, the former president did make significant progress toward protecting the climate, including signing the largest federal climate change investment in U.S. history with the Inflation Reduction Act. But in just three months, the Trump administration has already rolled back more than 125 environmental protections and fired hundreds of employees at the Environmental Protection Agency. “We’re seeing an increase in climate doomerism, where people think climate change is real but there is nothing we can do about it, so what’s the point,” Thomas-Walters told Salon in a video call. “If you are already in the climate-doom mindset, then one more ad about the polar bears or bees dying is just going to reinforce your existing beliefs and make you feel even more hopeless.” Millions of people all over the world have felt the impacts of climate change in the form of natural disasters, rising sea levels and heat waves that impact their health or food sources. Those who have experienced climate disasters report forms of PTSD that may be triggered by similar events. Globally, an increasing number of people recognize climate change as a threat, said Tobias Brosch, a psychologist at the University of Geneva who studies studying how emotion affects behaviors related to sustainability. But in the U.S., a significant proportion of the public continues to believe that climate change is not real, a phenomenon closely linked to political partisanship.  Denying climate change could be understood as a psychological maneuver to process an irreconcilable threat, Brosch said. Ultimately, climate change poses an existential threat to humans, invoking one of two responses: fight or flight. Choosing to fight would require someone to change their lifestyle and make potentially challenging sacrifices, so it may be psychologically advantageous, in the short term, to "flee" by choosing climate denialism, Brosch said. Climate change “is a statistical thing that requires a fair amount of complexity, which leaves the human mind lots of avenues to escape from it,” Brosch told Salon in a video call. “If you have leaders saying it is not an issue, it is also easy to jump on that train.” It is unquestionably painful to face the truth about the global climate crisis, and emotionally logical to avoid the let-down of investing in a cause without seeing significant or meaningful change. Caring about the species we share the planet with, cute or otherwise, has been shown to be a major driver of conservation. It’s a tangible connection that implies goals we can work toward together.  That remains true if the animal in question is a reptile or parasite with few visible shared characteristics with humans — we can still recognize it as a living being sharing our planetary space, and that can move us to take action. “These emotional reactions that people feel in the context of climate change are among the most important predictors of wanting to take climate action,” Brosch said. “Emotions work as a sort of relevance indicator. They show us that something is important to us.” It's clearly true that individual changes to preserve the environment can only go so far without significant changes implemented by government and private industry. But humans have already saved dozens of species through conservation efforts. Those almost always begin with bringing awareness to a species, as has apparently happened with polar bears and honeybees.   “It’s also a form of denialism to say it’s all up to the politicians and industry to do something,” Brosch said. “As citizens, we do have a lot of potential impact. It’s just important that it's not just one person, but that there's some kind of collective action.” Read more about climate and the path forward

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