Toad patrolling and Covid 19
We have reviewed our advice on toad patrolling following helpful feedback from Toad Patrol Managers.
Toad Patrollers need to interpret the guidance according to their specific circumstances. We provide some of the points most relevant to toad patrolling below, but the full Government advice should be considered:
England
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home#when-you-can-leave-home
“Detailed guidance on the national lockdown
This guidance is for people who are fit and well. There is additional advice for people who are clinically extremely vulnerable to coronavirus and households with a possible or confirmed coronavirus infection.”
‘You must not leave or be outside of your home except where you have a ‘reasonable excuse’.’
These include:
- “Exercise – You can continue to exercise alone, with one other person or with your household or support bubble. This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area. You should maintain social distancing.
- Volunteering – you can also leave home to provide voluntary or charitable services.”
Wales
https://gov.wales/leaving-your-home-and-seeing-other-people-alert-level-4
‘At alert level 4, you can only leave home if you have a “reasonable excuse”. The following are considered to be reasonable excuses for leaving home at alert level 4:
‘to exercise, alone or with members of your household or support bubble.’
‘for work purposes, or voluntary or charitable purposes, but only where it is not reasonably practicable to do this from home’
‘In order to act reasonably you must ask yourself what other careful people would do if they were in your shoes. Whether or not it would be reasonable to undertake a particular activity would depend on the surrounding circumstances, including how long you would be away from home for, how far you had to travel, the likelihood of interaction with others and the risk of transmission of the disease as well as why the activity is necessary and cannot reasonably be deferred until Alert level 4 restrictions have been lifted’
‘None of the information in this guidance applies to people who have been told to self-isolate by NHS Wales Test Trace Protect.’
Scotland
‘To minimise the risk of spreading the virus, you must stay at home as much as possible.’
‘Examples of reasonable excuses to go out:
‘for work or an activity associated with seeking employment, or to provide voluntary or charitable services, but only where that cannot be done from your home.’
‘for essential animal welfare reasons, such as exercising or feeding a horse or going to a vet.’
‘local outdoor recreation, sport or exercise, walking, cycling, golf, or running that starts and finishes at the same place (which can be up to 5 miles from the boundary of your local authority area) as long as you abide by the rules on meeting other households’
‘Up to 2 people from 2 separate households can meet outdoors for sport, exercise or social interaction.’
We recommend talking to your local police to ensure that you are interpreting the regulations in the same way they are. Patrols have found this useful.
Note that volunteer insurance may be affected if Government guidance is not followed.
In addition to this guidance, take care with hand sanitisers and consider the potential impact when picking up amphibians.
We recognise that it is a difficult decision balancing the requirement to follow Government guidance and the potential amphibian mortality. We hope that the lower levels of traffic will help to reduce mortality this year too. We completely understand that different Toad Patrols will be making different decisions this year depending on their sites and personal circumstances. Whatever your decision, at Froglife we wish you safe and well.