ON Press: Homeowners urged to frog-proof pools, windows

[Herp News]

CBC (Ottawa, Ontario) 21 August 09 Homeowners urged to frog-proof pools, windows
The lives of tens of thousands of frogs, toads and salamanders could be saved each year if homeowners made a few simple changes to their homes and yards, says an Ottawa biologist.
Dan Brunton said backyard swimming pools are particularly deadly, and he has found up to 10 dead amphibians in the filter of his neighbour's pool before.
"The simple thing was they just couldn't get out," Brunton said.
"There's a wonderful commercial opportunity in here. Somebody make a nice little floaty ramp. You just leave it there and the critters climb out of your pool every morning."
A green frog trapped in the filter earlier this week was luckier than most — it was still alive when Brunton visited the pool to demonstrate the problem to a CBC reporter this week.
Fraser Veitch, a spokesperson for Benson Pools, a company that sells pool equipment and services, said it's fairly common for frogs to get trapped in pools, but people aren't always sure what to do when it happens.
"Some are kind of grossed out by it, and they'll ask us over there to remove it," he said.
While Brunton was renovating his home recently, he discovered another problem for amphibians — window wells.
"The day these were put in two toads were found dead the following morning," he said, pointing at his own below-grade basement windows.
Brunton has now built gravel slopes in the wells so toads and other critters can climb out — something he encourages other homeowners to do.
"Since we've put this simple, simple little ramp in there, not one more animal has died in this thing."
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/stor...s.html?ref=rss

[John]

It's a message many people have been trying to get across for years but until the "Garden" Toad or Frog looks like the beautiful amphibians folks see on TV, familiarity will continue to breed, at best, indifference.

[Jace]

My grandmother had this problem with her rain barrels when the water got too low in them. So, she cut up a couple of my grandfathers' fishing nets and stapled thet nets over the tops of the barrels-much to my grandfathers' horror. Then, in the cow troughs, she cut tree branches up and put them in there, overhanding. The cows could scratch their rumps and the frogs and toads could come and go as they pleased!

[SludgeMunkey]

Does this include frog proofing your home to keep critters in?

I keep getting new pets because they show up in my basement on their own accord (nearly at my legal limit of P. triseriata triseriata because of this).

On the plus side, this article and it's brethren around the web have inspired me to use Great Stuff for what it was intended. And that is a good thing, because it does not work as well for vivaria as one would think...