There's a spot on Elk View Road where tiny toadlets no bigger than a dime were getting crushed by vehicles as they tried to migrate across the road.

A new amphibian tunnel completed in June in the hills above Chilliwack should help.

"One of the really neat aspects is this is a solution that other communities can implement as well," said Joanne Neilson, executive director of Fraser Valley Conservancy.

There's province-wide concern about declining amphibian species in areas where development is spring up around wetlands, so the tunnel structure is being touted as a potential model for others to follow to reduce mortalities.

B.C. communities might one day look at culvert replacement in a more toad-friendly way.

Last month special fencing was used to guide the toads and frogs through the newly built culvert for the first time.

With the odds against them — only about 1 in 1,000 sea turtles survive to adulthood — the hatchlings had missed their instinctual dash to the ocean and had been collected after routine beach nest inspections by the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton.

Stored in several plastic bins and cramped on top of each other as when they first hatch, the tiny turtles about 3 inches long were brought on board by members of the Coast Guard.

Most of the hatchlings were baby loggerhead sea turtles, but four young sea turtles that had been rehabilitated at the nature center also made their way back into the ocean.

Even though crocodile attacks are fewer are further between these days, local fishing communities still remain fearful of coming into contact with the grey-skinned reptile and which feeds on prey and in the same mangroves where fishermen gather molluscs and fish.

In the Bay of Cispatá, near San Antero, Sucre, marine biologists have been studying the Magdalena Caiman to be able to give this creature a fighting chance for survival. Last February, a team of international biologists visited the fresh- water lagoon to see first hand how a 10 year-long project by the Asociación de Caimaneros de Cispatá, Asocaimán, has farmed 3,000 eggs and returned to the wild some 4000 baby crocs.

Part of the responsibilities of Asocaimán is to work closely with local communities to dissuade them from hunting the endangered creature in order to sell their skins on the global black market.

Colombia is one of the world’s leading exporters of exotic leathers and legal exports of local crocodile skins totaled USD $12 million in 2014. According to the Colombian Association of Zoo Farms, Azoocol, some 600,000 alligator skins are sold every year to luxury brands, especially in Asia where demand for legally-farmed alligator handbags and accessories remains high.

These incredible photos capture the stomach-churning moment a snake sneaks up on a lizard and swallows it whole.

The white-spotted cat snake, measuring about 1.8m in length, spent around half an hour consuming the lizard after slithering up on it as it slept.

The chameleon forest dragon, also known as a Javan humphead lizard, usually sleeps at the ends of branches which makes it an easy target for predatory snakes.

The unlucky reptile, which was around 25cm long, was resting on a branch 3m off the ground in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in South Sumatra, Indonesia.