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February 8, 2017
Squirrels might fall out of the trees, so we have to put little trampolines under the — you get the idea.
Davis…ultra-liberal, ultra-weird Davis, home of, among other things, the toad tunnel. No, really.There are rumors the TT is, well, a rumor. I used to believe those; they are false, the tunnel is real. Because of the building of the overpass, animal lovers including Julie Partansky worried about toads being smooshed by cars, because before the overpass, a colony of toads hopped from one side of a dirt lot (which the overpass replaced) to the reservoir at the other end. There was a lot of controversy, and the town decided, as part of the $7 million financing for the project, to allocate funds to build a toad tunnel beneath the Pole Line Road overpass. Wikipedia reports that the tunnel cost $14,000, while the book Northern California Curiosities reports $12,000. The book Weird California claims it was $30,000. There are also several tunnels rather than just one. The shortest run is in the street opposite Sudwerk‘s parking lot. It does, however, lack any sort of decoration, so it helps if you visit Toad Hollow to get an idea of what you’re looking for. All the tunnels terminate at a fenced, protected wetland area with foreboding signs implying that if you climb over the fence, you will cause hundreds of species to die and make Gaia weep. House of Eratosthenes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 8, 2017 7:54 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
In western Canada they build grizzly bear/moose/elk tunnels under the trans-Canada highway. In California it's toads. Brings to mind the old joke about the plantation owner squashing piss ants in his parlor while the elephants stomped the plantation.
Posted by: BillH at February 8, 2017 9:50 AM
Actually I don't mind spending tax dollars on this. The alternative is people swerving all over the road to avoid the frogs and killing people.
Posted by: J Cass at February 8, 2017 10:12 AM
Before reading the article, I would have sworn that it was about Monkton/ Bristol area of Addison County, Vermont. They actually pursued the idea of ripping up the Vergennes ~ Monkton Road to put in an underpass for the toads and newts to cross the swamp area for sex parties.
Fortunately, saner voices prevailed during the voting but it was close. You laugh at these things, but you have no idea just how crazy these people are.
There is no point of reasoning with them; they're Klingons.
Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck at February 8, 2017 11:02 AM
Toads? A simple 2' high fence will suffice.
When they extended I-75 into southwest Florida they constructed a 10' high fence along both sides to keep the Florida Panthers off of it. Then, they found out I-75 was hampering the breeding of the panthers by cutting into their roaming zones, they constructed tunnels and over passes.
Gov't tends to do massive things without fully considering the massive consequences.
"The king pin doesn't mind spilling thousands of dollars worth of coke on the floor during a party because he paid for it with stolen money."
--gs, 2099
Posted by: ghostsniper at February 8, 2017 2:21 PM
Where I live we have tiny little bridges and underpasses at big roads so the the plaid brigade in their golf carts can safely reach the other side of the course.
Posted by: anonymous at February 8, 2017 2:45 PM
Gawd, I forgot about Julie Partansky: a proponent of leaving potholes unpaved, lest we should lose their historic value (I'm not joking); one of the architects of the Dark Skies campaign, which dimmed and shaded streetlamps to better view the stars, much to the delight of drunken college students, graffiti "artists," rapists and muggers (finally, we folks in the Downtown Davis Business Association -DDBA- been able to make some headway against this crime issue); and, last but not least, Ms. Partansky was a vocal opponent of mosquito abatement, particularly with respect to West Nile Virus spraying.
RIP, Julie, 'cause now that you're gone, we sure are.
Oh yeahhh, we can't forget this little gem either (sorry about the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert link, but it's funny and from way back in 1999, when he wasn't so insufferable.):
Posted by: Armchair Sinner at February 8, 2017 6:26 PM
anon, the plaid brigade is after all an endangered species, or at least was until Trump got elected.
Posted by: BillH at February 9, 2017 9:30 AM
Hmmm, maybe a one way tunnel to allow the invasive species known as Mexicanus immigrantus to exit the USA to protect the local populations of the southern states. They are known to be rabid breeders and parasitic invaders of their hosts. If only there was a spray.
Posted by: Tripletap at February 10, 2017 12:22 PM