Film Info76 minutes
Wilderness Committee Available for Free AND Ticketed screenings Synopsis: Toad People is a story about hope, community and the struggle to save the western toad. In British Columbia, toads are on the decline because of habitat loss, fragmentation, and roadkill. Different families work together to save the toads as they undertake their annual migration from the wetland habitat where they breed to the forest where they spend most of their lives. Toad People is not just about toads, but about residents who care about species at risk in their backyards and help restore the fragile connections between communities and the natural world. |
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Filmmaker Q&A
What inspired this story?
Every year in the early summer when the weather starts to warm up, a rural road in the community of Ryder Lake in Chilliwack, British Columbia, starts moving. Tiny dark spots cover the road like a carpet. Fingernail-sized juvenile western toads have begun their migration – from the wetlands where they were born to the forest where they live. For the toadlets, the journey is hazardous. Many of them will never get to the other side of the road.
The annual migration of thousands of juvenile toadlets is a spectacular natural wonder that people have compared to the greatest wildlife migrations in Africa, except that it is occurring in people's backyards in British Columbia.
On the road, we were intrigued by the ongoing presence of community residents who had decided to help the toads: they stopped road traffic, they collected toads in buckets and carried them across the road; they even built toad tunnels. In other parts of the province, different families are also working together to save toads.
What inspired us to make this film is the life commitment of people who want to protect species at risk, no matter how small they are. We wanted to tell the story of these extraordinary wildlife defenders, these “Toad People” who deeply care about wildlife, bu also help restore the fragile connections between local communities and the natural world.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film
For this film, we wanted to capture the entire lifecycle of western toads, including the communal breeding of the adults; the tadpole aggregation; and the migration. As with any wildlife film, nature is often unpredictable, and the climate patterns made it an ongoing challenge to film the different stages of the toads within the small budget and the schedule constraints often typical of making a film produced by a non-profit organization. It took several years and a great deal of flexibility to obtain all the footage we needed to tell the story.
How do you approach storytelling?
To tell the larger story of declining species at risk struggling with habitat loss, fragmentation, and roadkill, we focused on a unlikely champion: the western toad; and we connected the story of the toad with three key characters who tell the story themselves. We chose to focus on an amphibian species because people do not necessarily understand the role they may play in the ecosystem or may not care about them. It is even more unusual to consider people who have made the protection of the toads the centre of their lives.
In the film, the characters share their passion for toads, their challenges, struggles and successes. Rather than discussing at length larger issues of habitat loss and declining wildlife, we let our characters establish the connections between who they are, their communities, the toads, environmental protection, and the audiences. Their personal stories, their emotions, and their humanity drive the documentary.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
With the current extinction crisis, it could be easy to get demoralized and think that our actions to protect wildlife have no meaning. We hope that the story of those Toad People, ordinary people who take steps to save species in their backyards, will inspire others, and will reveal to audiences that there is a place for hope, caring, and action for endangered wildlife, and that we can all be part of that, starting in our own backyards. Every step we take matters.
The film is also an opportunity to remind audiences that while British Columbia has over 1,600 species at risk including killer whales, grizzly bears, barn owls and badgers, British Columbia is only one of two provinces in Canada that currently has no stand-alone endangered species legislation. An additional impact of the film is to raise awareness about the importance of adequate laws to protect endangered wildlife.
Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share?
When we started this project, a lot of people were skeptical and surprised that we chose toads as our film star, compared to more charismatic species. However in the course of making this film, we learnt a lot from toads. Toads taught us something very profound about connections. First there are the connections that toads themselves make across the landscape, moving between the wetland and the forest. Then there are the connections between the people and the toads: toads bring people together. Lastly, toads make us realize that everything in nature is connected, and how saving small things such as toads also help save
bigger animals such as grizzly bears. Toads reminds us that healthy ecosystems are connected ecosystems.
Every year in the early summer when the weather starts to warm up, a rural road in the community of Ryder Lake in Chilliwack, British Columbia, starts moving. Tiny dark spots cover the road like a carpet. Fingernail-sized juvenile western toads have begun their migration – from the wetlands where they were born to the forest where they live. For the toadlets, the journey is hazardous. Many of them will never get to the other side of the road.
The annual migration of thousands of juvenile toadlets is a spectacular natural wonder that people have compared to the greatest wildlife migrations in Africa, except that it is occurring in people's backyards in British Columbia.
On the road, we were intrigued by the ongoing presence of community residents who had decided to help the toads: they stopped road traffic, they collected toads in buckets and carried them across the road; they even built toad tunnels. In other parts of the province, different families are also working together to save toads.
What inspired us to make this film is the life commitment of people who want to protect species at risk, no matter how small they are. We wanted to tell the story of these extraordinary wildlife defenders, these “Toad People” who deeply care about wildlife, bu also help restore the fragile connections between local communities and the natural world.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film
For this film, we wanted to capture the entire lifecycle of western toads, including the communal breeding of the adults; the tadpole aggregation; and the migration. As with any wildlife film, nature is often unpredictable, and the climate patterns made it an ongoing challenge to film the different stages of the toads within the small budget and the schedule constraints often typical of making a film produced by a non-profit organization. It took several years and a great deal of flexibility to obtain all the footage we needed to tell the story.
How do you approach storytelling?
To tell the larger story of declining species at risk struggling with habitat loss, fragmentation, and roadkill, we focused on a unlikely champion: the western toad; and we connected the story of the toad with three key characters who tell the story themselves. We chose to focus on an amphibian species because people do not necessarily understand the role they may play in the ecosystem or may not care about them. It is even more unusual to consider people who have made the protection of the toads the centre of their lives.
In the film, the characters share their passion for toads, their challenges, struggles and successes. Rather than discussing at length larger issues of habitat loss and declining wildlife, we let our characters establish the connections between who they are, their communities, the toads, environmental protection, and the audiences. Their personal stories, their emotions, and their humanity drive the documentary.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
With the current extinction crisis, it could be easy to get demoralized and think that our actions to protect wildlife have no meaning. We hope that the story of those Toad People, ordinary people who take steps to save species in their backyards, will inspire others, and will reveal to audiences that there is a place for hope, caring, and action for endangered wildlife, and that we can all be part of that, starting in our own backyards. Every step we take matters.
The film is also an opportunity to remind audiences that while British Columbia has over 1,600 species at risk including killer whales, grizzly bears, barn owls and badgers, British Columbia is only one of two provinces in Canada that currently has no stand-alone endangered species legislation. An additional impact of the film is to raise awareness about the importance of adequate laws to protect endangered wildlife.
Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share?
When we started this project, a lot of people were skeptical and surprised that we chose toads as our film star, compared to more charismatic species. However in the course of making this film, we learnt a lot from toads. Toads taught us something very profound about connections. First there are the connections that toads themselves make across the landscape, moving between the wetland and the forest. Then there are the connections between the people and the toads: toads bring people together. Lastly, toads make us realize that everything in nature is connected, and how saving small things such as toads also help save
bigger animals such as grizzly bears. Toads reminds us that healthy ecosystems are connected ecosystems.