Every spring, thousands of frogs, toads, newts and salamanders across France leave their winter shelters in the woods and head toward ponds and wetlands to breed. The trouble is that many of these migration routes now cut straight across busy roads, and amphibians are painfully slow and easy to miss in the dark. To fix this, French authorities and conservation groups have started building small underground tunnels, known locally as crapauducs, that let amphibians pass safely beneath the road instead of crossing on top of it. What began as a handful of local experiments has slowly grown into a nationwide effort involving departments, regional parks and volunteers working together.
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