When the night falls in Portalegre, the toads appear. Put one foot outside the door and you will see them straight away. On our last walk of the day with Irma, we have to be careful that we don’t step on these pretty, small animals. Irma is eager to get outside and look for them so she can chase them with her nose. Not ideal, but we are glad she doesn’t kill them or, even worse, eat them. Sometimes one tries to get in. Now we have nothing against toads, but we don’t necessarily want them in our house.
Dead toads
Small and large toads hop around our property in search of we don’t know what. Water, perhaps, and that brings us to a major problem. The swimming pool appears to be a daily attraction for toads (and other animals), but it leads irrevocably to their death. In the morning we see them lying lifeless, sometimes on the bottom, sometimes on the surface. The first week we lived here, it rained a lot. That seemed to spur the arrival of the toads, because in one morning we scooped up eleven corpses out of the pool.
Finding a solution
We asked the previous owner about this toad death, and he answered it unfortunately is what it is. They die from the chlorine, he explained. When he used a tarp to cover the pool, they even crawled underneath it. And so we started a search on the internet, to find a solution. We soon stumbled upon inflatable ramps, which would allow the toads to save themselves by climbing out of the pool. But we also read that their vulnerable skin immediately gets injured when they come into contact with chlorine. So isn’t the ramp too late? Plus, of course, these ramps aren’t for sale anywhere here.
Prevention
We decided to try to prevent the toads from entering the pool in the first place. They don’t seem to be able to jump, so we bought a green, plastic border, which we placed along the edge of the pool with the shortest distance to bushes (we hadn’t bought enough to fence everything). We observed for a while and although every now and then a toad would appear in the pool, it seemed to help a bit.
Another idea we had was not to throw new chlorine into the pool. It’s too cold in winter for a swim after all. But now the water is so green that we can’t even see if there might be a dead animal on the bottom. Toads sometimes still show up in the filter, so we’re clearly haven’t found the 100 percent solution yet.
Work in progress
And then, all of a sudden, the olive harvest started and the swimming pool was no longer a priority. We need to change that quickly, because we can’t just let these toads die. We are thinking of an extra border, although we cannot close the entire path. They will always be able to find an entrance if they really want to. Suggestions anyone for a perfect solution? We’d love to hear from you!
