HoustonToad_Ponds_Forstner_Mike_SanMarcosTX_28August2024_Reel4209.mp3

Mike Forstner [00:00:00] When I was in high school, all the boys would drive around in their pickup trucks, and then they would find a canal bank somewhere, and they would park and sit on their tailgate and have their pretend adult discussions about how to save the world.

Mike Forstner [00:00:15] And the girls would drive around in their pickup trucks. Now, again, this is rural South Texas, so maybe it wasn't the same in Dallas for you guys, but whatever. And the girls would drive by. And I assure you that if me and Freddy were sitting on a tailgate, they didn't stop. They might honk and wave and keep going.

Mike Forstner [00:00:34] But if there were a few dozen boys standing around on pickup trucks, those girls felt like they could pull over. They were fine, and they'd come and talk to the boys, which usually meant that it got really quiet, really fast.

Mike Forstner [00:00:47] Houston toads aren't different.

Mike Forstner [00:00:49] Female Houston toads choose to go to choruses that have five or more males.

Mike Forstner [00:00:56] One of the things that people have done is every human being that buys a piece of rural land wants their own pond. Our net estimate is something like 4200% more impounded water in Bastrop today than there was in 1980. I don't know how bad it gets going backward, but it's probably the same multiple.

Mike Forstner [00:01:19] So now, not only do we have a lot more ponds that can be randomly encountered by a male who then calls and never has buddies show up to help the chicks come by. But we have fewer and fewer ponds where the males can aggregate that draw the females to the pond because they feel safe, or that's what they were evolutionarily driven to do.