New research confirms ongoing and worrying decline of Britain’s common toads - Froglife

New research confirms ongoing and worrying decline of Britain’s common toads

Toad populations have almost halved in the past 40 years, but huge annual citizen science efforts are key to vital data collection and ongoing conservation

New research published this week, confirms that populations of common toads (Bufo bufo) continue to decline in Great Britain, reflecting declines experienced by other once-common species such as farmland birds and hedgehogs, and likely indicating wider countryside-scale challenges facing some generalist native species. The research, led by Froglife – a leading UK amphibian and reptile conservation charity – has been published in leading journal Biodiversity and Conservation, and confirms that common toad populations have declined by a staggering 41% in the last 40 years in Britain, and by 33% in Switzerland, despite ongoing volunteer action via ‘toad patrols’

The study, which focuses on trend estimation rather than the reasons for the decline, provides an update following a paper published by Froglife in 2016 that first quantified the decline of common toads in Britain. It revealed a 68% decline in 30 years (1985-2013), but since 2016 researchers have added eight more years of data (1985-2021) from annual toad patrols which has been reanalysed to produce these latest figures. These are now the most up-to-date and comprehensive statistics for common toad populations in Britain, providing what’s thought to be one of the biggest datasets ever used for tracking population trends of amphibians, with millions of toads included in the analyses. The findings will enable conversationists at Froglife to better understand population trends, where toads most need help and to implement effective conservation action to help curb the decline.

Dr Silviu Petrovan, Trustee of Froglife, Senior Researcher at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the study explains: “Although it might appear that the situation for common toads has slightly improved since our 2016 paper, today’s findings are sadly very worrying as they show vast numbers of toads are being lost every year. The base level population is much lower than it was even in the 1980s – and the decline is ongoing, confirming that we need to urgently act to protect this much-loved and once common species before it’s too late.”