The Frog Road

There is a road connecting two of the bases – Patch Barracks & Panzer Kaserne – and it is an alternative to the autobahn.  People who use this road call in the ‘Frog Road.’  Why?  During mating season, the frogs try to cross the road to get to the other side.  🙂  Really!!  Along this road, and set back from the shoulder, there is a barricade that is 18-24 inches in height.

According to people who have lived here longer than a year, this barricade is new;  presumably it was erected to prevent the frogs from crossing the road and potentially getting flattened.  When we sat through the classroom instruction before taking the exam to get our military sponsored driver’s license, the frog road was explained to us:  when it is mating season, you must slow down so you don’t run over the frogs.  Well, the warning signs have gone up and the speed limit has significantly decreased in order for the frogs to have the highest likelihood of safely crossing the road.  (That 30 is kilometers per hour which translates to about 18 miles per hour.  Normally the speed is between 70 and 100 kmph.)  Not only that but there exists an Amphibian Project where volunteers capture the frogs, place them in buckets, and then carry the buckets across the road dumping the frogs out on the other side!  According to our community newspaper, this will happen daily from 7-9 a.m. and 7-11 p.m., February 18 – May 10.  This sign, however, has us slowing down from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m.  How, exactly, are the volunteers with the Amphibian Project actually seeing the frogs in order to catch them when it is dark 7-11 p.m.?  Headlamps?  I would think the greater concern would be slowing down so we don’t hit the volunteers transporting the frogs!