Western Toad

The western toad is native to a broad range of western North America, from Baja California north through the western United States into British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. It has warty, olive to gray-brown skin with a pale stripe down the back and, unlike most toads, males lack a vocal sac and produce only a soft chirping sound rather than a loud advertisement trill. It occupies an unusually wide range of elevations, from coastal lowland wetlands and forests up to alpine meadows and ponds well above the treeline. Populations in parts of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest have declined sharply since the late twentieth century, a decline linked in part to chytrid fungus infection, and the species is now considered a conservation concern across significant portions of its range even though it remains common elsewhere.