More than 1,000 young natterjack toads, Ireland's only native toad, have been released into specially constructed ponds in west Kerry, the National Wildlife Service has said.
The toadlets were rescued earlier this year after the long period of dry weather dried up their ponds.
The natterjack, an internationally endangered species, is found in Ireland only in southwest Kerry, primarily in the Maharees and Castlegregory areas, where a golf course and sand dune system are some of its most important breeding grounds.
The decline in farmland ponds has been identified as the main cause of natterjack toad decline across Europe.
A pond construction scheme put in place by the NPWS in 2008 involving local farmers has seen around 100 ponds dug.
Farmers are asked to maintain the area around the ponds under five-year contracts for which they are paid €1,000 a year.
"We are trying to recreate the original range around Castlemaine Harbour," Dr Ferdia Marnell, amphibian expert with the NPWS, said .
Although one in five of the constructed ponds have become colonised, numbers of toads are still in decline, according to the most recent survey, and the toad is on Ireland’s Red Data list of endangered species.
In dry years the toadlets are rescued, reared and replaced.
This year during the fine dry weather of May, some 463 tadpoles were rescued by NPWS staff and brought to the Dingle Aquarium, Mara Beo, where they were reared.
A further 600 were reared in Fota Wildlife Park as part of a captive toadlet breeding programme.
Unlike the Common Toad, the natterjack crawls and runs rather than hops, burrow into sand dunes and have a distinctive yellow stripe down their back, according to ecologists with the NPWS.
The vast majority of spawning occurs by late May. The male’s distinctive nightime mating croak to attract the female draws wildlife enthusiasts annually to dunes, and the golf courses which have been built on old dune systems.
In dry years many breeding ponds used by natterjacks will not fill with water, or will dry up early and the number of tadpoles that survive to metamorphosis will be small.
In good years, however, thousands of toadlets will emerge onto land and disperse in search of new breeding ponds.
