Why Do Toads Cross The Road?

(CBS)  The road to romance can be rocky — but for toads, it can be fatal. So in Britain, special efforts are made to help the amorous amphibians to their destinations.

As CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer

explains

, the toads are able to make their love connections with a little help from their human friends.

In the village of Yatton, in Somerset, for instance, nightfall brings the villagers out on a mission: They scan the lanes and ditches for toads.

Every spring, clumps of mating toads appear in Britain's ponds and streams. Multiple males climb onto each female, determined to fertilize her eggs. But to reach the waters where they mate from the woods where they spend the winter, toads must cross roads. Even quiet country lanes can be a toad's death trap.

"As we're getting more fatalities on the road," says Toad Patrol Coordinator Andrew Town, "it becomes more important to save the ones that are left."

Town organizes toad rescues in Yatton for Britain's Wildlife Trust.

He pointed to a male toad he told Palmer "has probably been on the female's back for several days now, and come down all the way from the woods like that. Just clasping on."

Because the males travel on the females' backs, he points out, roads are double jeopardy for toads: "One car would squash them both. If it squashed one, it would get them both."

In addition, during the last 100 years, three-quarters of Britain's natural ponds and streams, the toads' habitat, have been destroyed.

To make sure the common toad stays that way, volunteers such as Iris and Andrew Langton suit up every spring evening to join the Yatton rescue patrol. They intercept the toads at the roadside before they hop into danger and bring them to the other side.

There's no question, says Iris, that the effort is paying off: "A couple of years ago, we were just recording around about 100," she says. "Last year, we were up to about 1,000. And this year, already, 612. And it's really just the start of the migration."

In one night alone, they shuttled 200 toads across to safety.

There are actually more than 600 toad crossings officially registered across England, Scotland and Wales, Palmer notes.