Where the ribbit meets the road: My adventures in frog shuttling

It’s winter, it’s dark, it’s raining, and the temperature is stuck in the mid-40s. And that means that the good citizens of the Harborton Frog Shuttle are ready to roll.

Our shuttle has been helping amphibians cross the road for 10 years now, one plump pink frog at a time. But we are not the only amphibian taxi service in the country. In fact, anywhere frogs and salamanders are trying to cross treacherous pavement to get to their vernal pools – their spring mixer, where they hope to pair off, be fruitful, and multiply – there are likely to be humans trying to make sure they make it. It’s no wonder: They’re a compelling sight. A Mardi Gras parade has nothing on hundreds of yellow-and-black spotted salamanders marching across the landscape. They are gorgeous, and motivated, and heartbreakingly vulnerable. They have thousands of years of evolutionary heritage to uphold, and automobiles never figured into it.

There’s more than one website devoted to hooking up concerned citizens with volunteer patrols already underway. But it’s not as if all roads need monitoring all the time. There are certain migration routes the amphibians predictably take, usually from a forested area uphill to an established low-lying wetland. There might be a stretch of road to cross, or a much smaller cinch point. In some places, citizen activists have even succeeded in getting a road closed to traffic on particular nights in a particular season. Typically, only the first warmer, rainy nights in late March or in April are going to be frogful.

But that does not apply to the Harborton Frog Shuttle (motto: Where the ribbit meets the road).

We’re just north of Portland, Oregon. We don’t have a little country lane to patrol. We have a high-speed, four-lane highway, and we won’t be able to shut it down. And we don’t have a nice tidy window in early spring to worry about. We’ve got all winter.

Blame the damp and moderate climate hereabouts or the particular ardor of the northern red-legged frog, but our target species is ready to hop anytime between early November and the middle of March. And then it’ll need to go back uphill. Now we’re talking well into April.

It’s a lot to ask of volunteers. So we have a hundred of us signed up, and we have teams corresponding to every day of the week. If you’re on the Monday team, you’re expected to keep Monday evenings clear on your calendar. For over five months.

It’s not as though the beneficiaries of our efforts appreciate us, either. They do not. They have some very specific goals in mind, and none of them involve being suddenly bucketed with a bunch of other frogs and set on the floorboard of a Subaru. They flat-out don’t like us, and we are dedicated to making sure they won’t like us next year, either.

And some of those evenings, if truth be told, some of us find ourselves hoping for dry, cold, frog-free weather. We’re only human. Around the holiday season, which also lasts for months, it seems like no one has enough time. There’s too much to do. It doesn’t feel as good as it should. It’s stressful. 

In mid-December, there are still another dozen gifts to buy, cookies to bake, and holiday open houses to juggle. The frogs measure time differently.

They’re in a holiday spirit, though. There is nothing like a steady downpour in the dark to put a frog in a festive frame of mind. They’re not stressed; they’ve got everything all wrapped up already. The smaller males come down first. They’re going to stake out their portion of the swamp and practice their moves. Each one is certain he is exactly what the females want.

If anyone can roll her eyes, it’s a frog, but after a while, in the spirit of the season, the big females begin blooping down the hill too, bloated with eggs, and look over the prospects. They aren’t in as much of a hurry. No one wants to be first.

And the thing about it is they will do this without any regard whatsoever for the imaginary needs of frog shuttlers. You have plans for Thanksgiving? Frogs don’t care. You don’t have Christmas wrapped up? Frogs don’t care. You have your jammies and bunny slippers on and a sappy movie cued up and are just starting to think about making a bowl of popcorn and settling in for the night? Frogs don’t care.

It’s raining. It’s dark. It’s go time. And that’s the best thing frogs do for us. They pull us out of our time, our concerns, our petty obligations, our artificial schedules, and put us on Frog Time, when the air is fresh and the geese and owls and chorus frogs are in charge of music and the night might offer you 50 more plump, rubbery chances to do something for somebody that they won’t appreciate.

It’s a new year. Instead of trudging through winter, marking time, find a new time zone. Pacific Tree Frog Time! Mountain Chickadee Time! Daylight Saving Wildlife Time! Eastern Bluebird Time! Pay attention to their needs, and a lot of your own will fade away.