Growing up on an Oak Harbor farm, Sheila Case-Smith remembers when it was common to spot a toad on the family property.
She recalls one toad, in particular, she would see resting inside a concrete window well where it was cool, moist and a trap for unsuspecting insects. She remembers the toad living in that spot for years.
Away from the farm, toads also were unavoidable.
“In high school, someone gave me one he caught on West Beach Road,” Case-Smith said. “He thought it would endear me, giving me a toad in a brown paper bag. He was kind of an odd fellow. It was the biggest toad I think I’d ever seen.”
Those sort of memories are bittersweet for the fourth-generation farmer who returned to the family farm in 1975. She hasn’t seen a toad on her property in “probably 40 years,” and it makes her sad.
“I’m very fond of them,” she said. “I like frogs, toads and salamanders. I’m sad for them having such a hard go. I watch Channel 9 and learn about the worldwide decline of amphibians. It bothers me.”
The current status of the Western Toad, the most common toad found in the state of Washington, is a bit of a mystery on Whidbey Island.
Ruth Milner, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife district biologist whose territory includes Island County, is trying to clear that up.
Milner wants to document the Western Toad’s existence on Whidbey and is asking for public input.
Of most importance to Milner are any known breeding ponds on the island, though she’s also interested in learning details about sightings of adult toads.
The Western Toad is listed as a “species of concern” in the state of Washington because of a significant drop in historic sightings, particularly in more urban areas where breeding ponds have disappeared and migrating paths have been disrupted.
“It’s a species we know is declining in parts of its range, but we don’t have great information,” Milner said.
Milner, who has been a wildlife biologist in Region 4 since 1992, has been wanting to gather more information on toads for years.
Her only documented case of a breeding site on Whidbey came from a private landowner’s pond south of Coupeville about eight years ago.
She gets reports of adult toad sightings on the island and some of younger toads, but not in the abundance that comes with mass toadlet migration.
The center of toad activity on the island appears to point to North Whidbey with adult sightings reported in the old growth forests of Hoypus Hill at Deception Pass State Park and in rural land that stretches to Frostad Road.
Milner got a report and photos of two adult sightings at Hoypus Hill earlier this year, which got her thinking about going after more information on the island.
She said she got a report from an Oak Harbor resident about 10 years ago of toadlet migration at a lake near Frostad Road, but not of a large scale.
When toadlets migrate, it can be quite a spectacle.
Jon Crimmins, area manager of Central Whidbey State Parks, witnessed an “amazing hatch” of Western Toads at Anderson Lake State Park in August of 2010 that drew local media attention and left him wondering what he was looking at.
“It was the first time I had ever seen one,” said Crimmins, who grew up in Coupeville.
Milner got her first look at a mass toad migration at a pond at Fort Lewis in Pierce County, with hundreds of thousands of half-inch long toadlets leaving the pond and heading for the woods, calling it “a moving carpet.”
“It can be in the millions,” she said. “It’s something else.”
Milner took a phone call from an Arlington homeowner a few years ago, panicked over the experience. The woman had built a home between a toad breeding pond and the woods.
“I’m not an expert on migration but I think they go on a very instinctually-driven route,” Milner said. “This lady’s house was right in the middle of the migration. She was just totally freaking out. It was like ‘The Birds’ and Hitchcock had selected her house.
“A week later, she called back and there wasn’t a single toad left.”
Rick Blank, assistant park manager at Deception Pass for 25 years, has seen toads on the hiking trails near Hoypus Hill as recently as this spring. He knows a toad from a frog because of their warty appearance and rough skin.
Western Toads are not nearly as common as other amphibians in the park, including the Pacific Treefrog that makes the chorus at night. But Blank never remembers toads being in abundance in the past.
“I just remember them being about the same,” he said.
Jack Hartt, longtime park manager at Deception Pass, said he’s seen toads at Cranberry Lake but adds he’s hardly a toad expert.
“I’m not sure I know the difference between a toad or a frog other than warts,” he said. “I know about as much as any 10-year-old.”
Aside from their rough, bumpy skin, other characteristics that can help distinguish Western Toads from frogs and help with identification are their tadpoles, egg masses, breeding preferences and migrating habits.
Adult toads, which range in size from 2 to 5 inches, are generally found hunting for food at night and return to ponds during breeding season, which begins typically in late April in lower elevations of Western Washington and later in more mountainous areas.
Western Toads lay long strings of eggs in shallow freshwater lakes and ponds, often in a foot of water or less. The tadpoles that emerge are large and black and tend to pool together in large masses. By contrast, bullfrog tadpoles are larger and are typically a mottled green color.
Milner suspects that this time of year mature tadpoles will be present in ponds on Whidbey with the possibility that mass migration of toadlets has begun.
The range of the Western Toad extends along the West Coast from southern Alaska to northern Baja, Calif., and as far east as Colorado.
A significant drop in Western Toad sightings in Colorado in the 1980s was one of the first classic examples of a broad mysterious amphibian decline, said Mike Adams, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Corvallis, Ore.
“They used to be common there and they basically disappeared,” Adams said, adding that later surveys did find that some populations returned.
Other states that have shown rapid and unexplained declines include California, Utah, Oregon, Wyoming, Washington and New Mexico.
Milner points to habitat loss in more urban areas as a major factor as development has led to wetlands disappearing. She wonders about environment factors and pointed to a fungus that scientists in recent years have targeted and attributed to large scale amphibian declines.
“We put so much stress on wildlife in general that we’re not even aware of all the potential ramifications of all the decisions human beings make,” Milner said.
“It could be with the toad that in more urbanized areas, there’s a drop out there but it’s more stable elsewhere. We just don’t know. But everybody who grew up in Western Washington at a certain age has stories about the giant toad that used to live in their backyard. Nobody’s talking about that anymore.”
Case-Smith has new hope after a discovery this spring.
Her son’s friend found a small toad not far from Troxell Road and brought it to the Case farm where it was released. He later brought another.
A toad, because of its voracious appetite for bugs, has been called a farmer’s best friend.
“It got to the point where I was starting to think they were no longer on the island,” Case-Smith said.
IF YOU SPOT A TOAD or, more importantly, a breeding site on Whidbey Island, wildlife biologist Ruth Milner of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife would like to know. Details she is interested in regarding a breeding site, include the pond name, address and GPS coordinates (if possible) and a description of what is being observed (tadpoles, eggs or toadlets). For adult toad sightings, she is interested in details about the location, including an address and GPS coordinates if possible. She also is interested in a size estimate. In both cases, she would like the observer’s name and contact information. Milner may be reached at Ruth.Milner@dfw.wa.gov or 360-466-4345, ext. 265.
