A Russian bucket brigade helps toads and frogs cross the road to get to a spawning site

A NATURE RESERVE NEAR SESTRORETSK, Russia (AP) — It happens every spring along a section of road north of Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg: Volunteers, many in yellow vests, patrol near the Sestroretsk Bog nature reserve.

They serve as crossing guards for thousands of toads and frogs, who are trying to navigate toward their spawning sites.

There usually isn’t much traffic, but even the relatively low number of vehicles still would kill up to 1,000 toads each year, said Konstantin Milta, senior herpetology researcher with the St. Petersburg Zoological Institute.

“On large highways, the death rate is monstrous. Sometimes the surface of the road can be covered with a layer of dead animals,” Milta told The Associated Press.

On this section, a large reddish-orange sign that features one of the amphibians warns motorists: “Attention! Slow down! Toads are crossing the road.”

When the volunteers find one of the creatures, they pick it up, put it in a plastic bucket and make a record before depositing it in the grass on the other side.

“So cute!” one of the volunteers said, referring to how the toad clung to her pink glove.

In the Sestroretsk Bog reserve, “toads migrate from the forest to the bay in the spring, reproduce in the reed beds in the coastal strip, lay eggs, and then, somewhere in mid-May, they leave the water and migrate back to the forest,” Milta said.

“So they cross this road twice,” he added.

Members of this bucket brigade have been volunteering their time since 2016, said Viktoria Samuta, head of the environmental education section of the Directorate of Protected Areas of St. Petersburg.

Depending on the weather, the work begins in mid-April and continues for a month or longer, she said, with more than 700 volunteers take part every year.

Last year, Samuta said, volunteers helped move thousands of specimens.

“It is very good that in recent years there have been more and more people ready to help living beings,” she said. “Our mission is, precisely, to make people love our nature more and more, and be willing to help it.”

Volunteer Diana Kulinichenko called it a nice break from her studies.

“I’ve been whining all semester that I want to go to the forest," Kulinichenko said. "And here’s the forest, the toads, you help the toads, you’re in the forest, you breathe clean air. And I just really want to volunteer, so after this I’ll be looking for where else I can do it.”

A volunteer holds a toad at the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A fence keeps frogs off a road until volunteers can move them across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A volunteer helps a frog cross the road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A frog sits in the water in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Frogs safely reach a spawning area in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Frogs leap to get into the water in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A fence keeps frogs off a road until volunteers can move them across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A volunteer carries frogs across a road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A frog crosses a road to get a spawning area in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Frogs sit near a road fenced off by volunteers who help them move across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve near St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Lamar Jackson thought it was over. That the Baltimore Ravens' unwieldy season would end up in a familiar spot: the playoffs.

Then, rookie kicker Tyler Loop's potential game-winning field goal from 44 yards out drifted a little right. And then a little further right. And then a little further right still.

By the time it fluttered well wide of the goalposts, the playoffs were gone. So was Jackson's certainty after a 26-24 loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday night sent the Ravens into what could be a turbulent offseason.

“I'm definitely stunned, man,” Jackson said. “I thought we had it in the bag. ... I don't know what else we can do.”

Jackson, who never really seemed fully healthy during his eighth season as he battled one thing after another, did his part. The two-time NFL MVP passed for 238 yards and three touchdowns, including two long connections with Zay Flowers in the fourth quarter that put the Ravens (8-9) in front.

It just wasn't enough. Baltimore's defense, which played most of the second half without star safety Kyle Hamilton after Hamilton entered the concussion protocol, wilted against 42-year-old Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers passed for a season-high 294 yards, including a 26-yard flip to a wide-open Calvin Austin with 55 seconds to go after a defender slipped, symbolic of a season in which Baltimore's defense only occasionally found its form.

Still, the Ravens had a chance when Jackson found Isaiah Likely for a 28-yard gain on fourth down from midfield. A couple of snaps later, the 24-year-old Loop walked on to try to lift Baltimore to its third straight division title.

Instead, the rookie said he “mishit” it. Whatever it was, it never threatened to sneak between the goalposts.

“It’s disappointing,” Loop said.

Loop was talking about the game. He might as well have been talking about his team's season.

The Ravens began 1-5 as Jackson dealt with injuries and the defense struggled to get stops. Baltimore found a way to briefly tie the Steelers for first in late November, only to then split its next four games, including a home loss to Pittsburgh.

Still, when Jackson and the Ravens walked onto the Acrisure Stadium turf on Sunday night in the 272nd and final game of the NFL regular season, Baltimore was confident. The Ravens drilled Pittsburgh in the opening round of the playoffs a year ago behind the ever-churning legs of running back Derrick Henry.

When Henry ripped off a gain of 40-plus yards on the game's first offensive snap, it looked like it was going to be more of the same. While Henry did rush for 126 yards and joined Hall of Famer Barry Sanders as the only running backs in NFL history to have five 1,500-yard seasons, he was less effective in the second half.

Even that first run was telling of what night it was going to be, as an illegal block by wide receiver Zay Flowers cost Baltimore some field position. The Ravens ended up scoring on the drive anyway, thanks to a 38-yard fourth-down flip from Jackson to a wide-open Devontez Walker, but it started a pattern that was hard to shake as several steps forward were met with one step back on a night the Ravens finished with nine penalties for 78 yards.

“We were having a lot of penalties, which kept stopping drives," Jackson said. “But I'm proud of my guys because we kept overcoming. We kept overcoming adversity and situations like this. Divisional games (can) be like that sometimes.”

Particularly when the Steelers are on the other side of the line of scrimmage. Pittsburgh has won 10 of the last 13 meetings. And while a handful of them have been in late-season matchups with the Ravens already assured of reaching the playoffs, the reality is the Steelers have been able to regularly do something that most others have not: found a way to beat Jackson.

“It comes down to situations like this,” Jackson said. “Two-point conversion one year. Field goal another year. And again this year. Just got to find a way to get that win here.”

And figure out who is going to be around to help get it.

Head coach John Harbaugh's 18th season in Baltimore ended with the Ravens missing the playoffs for just the second time in eight years. Jackson turns 29 this week and is still one of the most electric players in the league.

Yet Harbaugh and Jackson have yet to find a way to have that breakthrough season that Harbaugh enjoyed with Joe Flacco in 2013 when the Ravens won the Super Bowl.

There was hope when the season began that the roadblocks that have long been in the franchise's way — Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes chief among them — would be gone.

While the Ravens did get their way in a sense — the Chiefs will watch the playoffs from afar for the first time in a decade after a nightmarish season of their own — it never all came together.

Jackson declined to endorse Harbaugh returning for a 19th season, saying the loss was still too fresh to zoom out on what it might mean for the franchise going forward.

Harbaugh, for his part, certainly seems up for running it back in the fall.

“I love these guys,” he said afterward. “I love these guys.”

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Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, right, hands the ball off to running back Derrick Henry (22) during the first half of an NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh talks with an offical during the second half of an NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Justin Berl)

Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle Cameron Heyward, left, greets Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) after an NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Steelers safety Jabrill Peppers (40) reacts after Baltimore Ravens kicker Tyler Loop (33) missed a field goal attempt in the second half of an NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)