We have a miniature wetland here in Torrance Ca. That I visit occassionaly. What I find odd is that they have not been able to reestablish the western spadefoot toad there. Plenty of habitat for the toad and excellent breeding area.
Spadefoot toads were s common here as late as the 1960's that were often over run with them. They lost all of their habitat and disappeared. What I find strange though is that even in the few remaining places where they do have good habitat they have disappeared and show no sign of recovering. I believe they are still pretty common in many other areas not too far from the south bay.
The people that run the Madronna Marsh claim that the bull frog is responsible but I don't buy it. Toads don't spend anytime in water unless they are breeding and by that time I think they would be too large for a bull frog to swallow. Any other theories.
Is the claim that the responsibility of the bullfrogs is a matter of predation? Couldn’t it just as plausibly be that they are out-competing the toads for food sources?
And if it IS about predation, couldn’t it be that the bullfrogs are chowing down on the toads’ spawn and tadpoles?
Missed the edit window: when did the Madrona Marsh finally become open to the public? When I lived there it was always a distant promise that someday we’d be able to walk around and explore.
Maybe the last 10 years or so they have been open to the public. They have a large office right across from the wetland for educational putposes. The tree frogs are doing well and they stay near water most of the time. Most of the Bull frogs I have caught have had bellies full of crawfish.
Bull frogs are unusual among North American frogs in that they eat some aquatic prey, like fish and tadpoles. Most ranid frogs eat exclusively above or out of the water. Bull frogs, which are not native to the Bay area, are an intrusive species that usually messes up its new environment wherever it goes. They are a plausible culprit for some of the decline in toad population.
An additional factor might be that when the physical habitat was restored, some important (to the toads) food species was not restored because it was overlooked.
Toads seem to just hop around and when they see a cricket or beetle they walk over and eat it. We used to have huge june bug hatches here each year. The entire ground would sometimes be covered. I can see where the toads may have taken advantage of these hatches to fatten up before they hibernated.
I have nothing to contribute as far as toads go, except to say I love 'em. I just want to thank HoneyBadgerDC for bringing up another beloved SoCal memory. I was a “friend of Madrona Marsh” in the 70s / 80s in so much as a kid/ teenager can be. I remember rallies and marches to save it.
I heard a few years ago that frogs and toads were inexplicably dying off, and many credit it to macro environmental factors. Of course, there are skeptics and nay-sayers, but this has been on the radar of the scientific community for years.
Yeah, while restored habitat is crucial, of course, pesticide residues in insects & other food sources can render it moot. No good having a place to live if your own food poisons you each day.
I remember there was a little gully in the Southwood area with a VERY small pond. IIRC, it was near where Palos Verdes Blvd. meets Linda Dr. Lots of plant life to prevent easy access (there may have also been a chain link fence, but I’m not sure, because Mom would sometimes drive us over there and even climbed down with us at least once), and thick black gooey mud that had a distinctive algae fragrance. We used to go looking for frogs there (little ones, maybe an inch or less long), nut mostly we’d find pollywogs and tadpoles.
On google earth it appears your little gully is still there. I t looks like it may have been over run by mountain bikes with eroded trails. Their does appear to be a muddy small pond in the bottom. I will check it out in the next few days and let you know. Kind of a hip bone shaped area ( very rough description) if we are talking about the same place.
We might be. Foot-accessible, just off Redbeam? It’s difficult to see if there’s any water to speak of (of course, in current conditions, there wouldn’t be, anyway).
I was looking at a different spot on the map. I know exactly where you are talking about now. I will check it out next time it rains. I am looking to restock my neighborhood with spadefoots. Everyone is so afraid of west nile virus that no one is willing to install small temporary ponds.
