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VICTORIA — A migration of toads described as a croaking, moving carpet and one of the world’s environmental wonders is dividing a southeastern British Columbia village over forestry jobs and the protection of tiny amphibians.

The western toad migration near the Village of Nakusp attracts tourists every summer to the Toad Festival at Summit Lake, where people fill buckets with the toads and carry them safely across Highway 6 to forest habitat.

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More than a million brown toads migrate at once, moving en mass from the lake across the highway to forested habitat where they live for four or five years before returning to the lake to breed.

The B.C. government spent almost $200,000 to build a toad tunnel underneath the highway, which is used by the toads, but many take the overland route and risk death on the highway.

“Hundreds of people go out and help them across the road,” said Kootenay West New Democrat MLA Katrine Conroy who represents Nakusp residents. “It looks like a carpet of toads going across the road, especially these little babies trying to get across the road.”