On a ribbon of road in West Marin, on wet winter nights when darkness comes early, a herd of determined amphibians gather together to cross to the breeding lake from which they once came.

Laguna Lake is a shallow natural body of water straddling the border between Sonoma and Marin counties. Half a mile wide and two miles long in the wet season, the lake is a birthing ground for the Taricha torso, or California newt, a slow-moving, red-bellied, big-eyed amphibian. Hardwired with the unfailing GPS endowed them by Mother Nature, the newts are compelled to travel back to the lake to spawn.

But odds are against them making it safely across Chileno Valley Road: in the winter of 2019, for instance, 41 percent of them died trying.

Enter the Chileno Valley Newt Brigade (CVNB), a small group of citizen scientists who’ve made it their mission to protect the critters from oncoming cars. Founded by a woman named Sally Gale who was chastened by the particularly grisly newt carnage of 2019, the brigade’s mission is simply to help move as many of the animals as they can from one side of the road to the other. READ MORE