DAVIS, Calif. – Science has gotten in the way of feel-good mythology about the famous Davis Toad Tunnel.
“No record occurs of the tunnel ever being used by a toad,” said John McNerney, Davis wildlife resource specialist. “It was well-intentioned but not successful.”
The toad tunnel, installed a dozen years ago this summer under a new overcrossing ramp, was intended to prevent the amphibians from being squished by cars.
Apparently, the toads never used the tunnel enough, if at all, and the population of toads that once hopped around the area has died out.
City officials through the years have questioned whether the toads actually ever used the tunnel. McNerney this week confirmed those suspicions.
The last couple of years, he surveyed for toad larvae – tadpoles – in the toad’s drainage pond. The results were not good.
“I have not found any Western toad larva in the pond,” McNerney said.
When the celebrated toad tunnel was being built in 1995, it made news on CNN and was lampooned on Comedy Central.
And Davis resident Ted Puntillo wrote “The Toads of Davis,” a children’s book about the undercrossing. He noted that the toad tunnel became “really world-known.”
Puntillo also constructed “Toad Hollow,” a whimsical doll-house-size group of structures at one end of the toad tunnel. He said he plans to refurbish the worn, decorative amphibian houses and toad outhouse.
Puntillo, 87, was saddened by the latest news about the toads. He believes the toads once used the tunnel because he saw them in Toad Hollow.
McNerney said that toads probably had difficulty finding the tunnel opening. And he wondered how the toads would know that it was the entrance to a subterranean path.
Additionally, the 220-foot-long toad tunnel, made of corrugated steel, had design flaws. The opening was shaped like a steel scoop and became hot.
“Toads tend not to jump onto a frying pan when they can avoid it,” he said. “It failed. It didn’t work for them.”
The Davis City Council and its residents “toadally” had their hearts in the right place when the council gave the go-ahead for the tunnel, McNerney said. That is not a myth.
Former Mayor Julie Partansky, who spearheaded the drive for the unusual tunnel, said in a 1999 Bee story that the toads had not jumped at the opportunity to use the pipeline.
However, there was no study to back up her suspicions. She long suspected the toads found it unnatural to hop through a tube.
“I don’t think it was designed right,” she said Wednesday. “Toads in nature don’t go down a long, dark tunnel.”
Another drawback for the toads has been development that filled once-empty fields on the post-office side of the tunnel, Partansky said.
She is saddened that the tunnel didn’t keep the toad population alive, especially since reports indicate that amphibians worldwide are threatened.
“Our intentions were good,” she said.
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