(17 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++PLEASE NOTE: AP IS OPERATING IN RUSSIA ACCORDING TO RUSSIAN RESTRICTIONS ON ALL REPORTING RELATED TO THE ONGOING MILITARY OPERATION IN UKRAINE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Leningrad region, Russia – 16 April 2025
1. Wide of road, sign reading (Russian) "Attention! Slow down! Toads are crossing the road"
2. Close of frog
3. Toad crossing road
4. Wide of volunteers on road
5. Close of frog
6. Volunteer catching frog in bucket and carrying it over road
7. Close of volunteer releasing frog, it jumps away
8. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Konstantin Milta, senior researcher at the herpetology laboratory of the St. Petersburg Zoological Institute:
"The toads migrate from the forest to the bay in the spring, reproduce in the reed beds in the coastal strip, lay eggs, and then, somewhere in mid-May, they leave the water and migrate back to the forest. And thus, they cross this road twice."
9. Volunteers catching toad in bucket
10. Volunteer showing toad and releasing it UPSOUND (Russian) volunteer, no name given: "So cute! Clings to it (the palm) with its finger."
11. Instructor talking to volunteers UPSOUND (Russian) instructor, no name given: "Be especially careful if the grass is high and there are leaves, watch your feet, you can remove the top layer this way, because sometimes they hide under the leaves."
12. Volunteer catching toad in bucket and carrying it over road
13. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Valeriya Tukeyeva, volunteer:
"Here are two pictures, of a toad and of a frog. For each one you mark each individual, then the section number. And where it goes, to the lake or from the lake."
14. Close of paper with table for statistics
15. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Diana Kulinchenko, volunteer:
"You could say that we take a break from studying this way. Because, well, I don’t know, I’ve been whining all semester that I want to go to the forest. And here’s the forest, the toads, you help the toads, you’re in the forest, you breathe clean air. And I just really want to volunteer, so after this I’ll be looking for where else I can do it."
16. Tukeyeva releasing frog from bucket
17. Close of frog jumping away
18. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Victoria Samuta, head of the Environmental Education Section of the Directorate of Protected Areas of St. Petersburg:
"It’s very good that in recent years there have been more and more people willing to help living beings. That’s why our mission is precisely to make people love our nature more and more, and strive to help it."
19. Close of frog
20. Wide of frogs in water
21. Various of frogs
22. Mid of bushes and trees by water
STORYLINE:
A couple dozen volunteers clad in yellow vests and textile gloves on Wednesday patrolled a road just outside St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city.
They were looking for frogs and toads heading across the asphalt towards their spawning sites in a nearby body of water, picking them up and carrying them across the road onto the grass, where they wouldn’t be hit by cars.
There usually aren’t that many on this particular section of the road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve, north of St. Petersburg, but the relatively slow traffic still killed up to 1,000 toads, said Konstantin Milta, senior researcher with the St. Petersburg Zoological Institute.
“On large highways, the death rate is monstrous. Sometimes the surface of the road can be covered with a layer of dead animals,” Milta told the Associated Press.
“So they cross this road twice,” he said.
Diana Kulinichenko, a volunteer, said the work gave her a nice break from her studies.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/8933411fd30d460b838d6bade714cc49
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in April 22, 2025, 12:04 pm.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
