Natterjack toads are Britain's rarest amphibian, confined to coastal dunes and heathland with warm, shallow pools, requiring active habitat management for their welfare.
Natterjack toads require very specific microhabitat conditions: warm shallow pools that are warm enough for rapid larval development before summer drying. Scrub encroachment shades pools and reduces their temperature below breeding thresholds. Sand dune stabilisation from reduced grazing or vehicle use reduces the dynamic processes that create new open habitat. Without active management intervention at most sites, natterjack populations decline rapidly as habitat degrades.