Western Toad Habitat in Danger as Nearby Logging Takes Place

A federally listed species of special concern could be threatened as the BC Government has approved logging near its core habitat.

The western toad’s habitat is located 14 kilometres outside the village of Nakusp, near the logging site just outside Summit Lake. According to the organization Wilderness Committee, road building began last week in the area but was halted by locals who have set up a blockade.

Each summer over a million toadlets migrate from Summit Lake across a dangerous highway into forested habitat, where they forage for four or more years until becoming adults and returning to Summit Lake to breed. Numerous government bodies including the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI) have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into building a “toad tunnel” to ensure safer passage for these at-risk amphibians. MoTI has stated that the Summit Lake toad migration is “among the great wildlife migrations in the world.”

“Claims to log and maintain core toad terrestrial habitat for Summit Lake are on very shaky ground. For one thing, no one knows exactly where the one million or more toadlets that just migrated into the areas to be logged are actually spending the winter hibernating,” said Wayne McCrory, a local biologist with the Valhalla Wilderness Society.

Drawing on toad studies elsewhere, McCrory concludes, “The best way to protect this provincially significant population is not through questionable logging practices but through expanding the current proposed Summit Lake Park to include the core forested toad habitats on the mountain. All of Summit Lake and the lower south side are already approved for park expansion. Why not include the core critical toad habitat on the mountain as well?”

An annual Toad Festival takes place at Summit Lake where hundreds of volunteers carry toadlets across Highway 6 so they won’t be squashed by cars.

“Western toad populations have undergone dramatic declines in the southern part of their range, which makes the Summit Lake western toad population very important,” said Gwen Barlee, Policy Director with the Wilderness Committee. “It is crazy that you have the BC government investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to save the toads, and then you have the BC Ministry of Forests allowing the destruction of core habitat of the same toads.”

The BC government’s Management Plan for the Western Toad recommends that as much forest habitat as possible be maintained “adjacent to breeding sites to allow for hibernation, foraging, and other essential life functions.” Government scientists acknowledge that the Summit Lake region is one of the key breeding areas for western toads in the Kootenay region, if not the entire province. Experts estimate that just one per cent of western toads survive to adulthood.

British Columbia is just one of two provinces that have no provincial endangered species legislation. Some Nakusp residents are asking the logging in the area stop and the toad habitat respected.