Fences have been widely used to exclude, manage, or monitor both native and invasive amphibian populations. Given that fences are artificial barriers that impact animal movements within the landscape, it is critical they do not allow for unwanted movement or lead to unintended animal welfare risks. We have carried out a literature review to identify features that have been used for amphibian fences, as well as aspects of fence design, installation, and maintenance that have limited their effectiveness. We also describe our own application of adaptive management to amphibian exclusion fences, in which we detected flaws and improved features, and monitored the effectiveness of these changes. Based on an exploration of the literature and our experiences, we found several key attributes to fences that must be considered when created for amphibians, including height, lip barriers, underground barriers, support frameworks, gates, seams, clearance zones, and moisture refuges. We found that studies commonly do not detail all of these aspects of their fences, and that few openly describe flaws in the design, installation, and subsequent maintenance of their fences. This is potentially concerning because it may limit chances to make improvements to fence designs that are specific for amphibians. We subsequently provide considerations and recommendations for each key fence attribute, along with maintenance and monitoring advice. These take into account intended fence purpose, desired fence permeability, and project constraints for a variety of amphibian types, life histories, and developmental stages. They are intended to be used by managers to assist in designing an effective fence for their target species. Some of our recommendations to reduce animal welfare risks are to minimise the use of: (1) fence materials that could cause abrasion injuries, (2) dry substrates that could lead to desiccation, (3) geofabrics that could lead to entanglement, and (4) fence aprons that animals could easily become trapped under. This is likely to be a valuable guide for practitioners who are required to install amphibian fences and for policy makers who prescribe fences for mitigation. This guide is applicable for projects managing threatened native species, as well as invasive species, such as the cane toad (Rhinella marina).

Individuals within amphibian populations are commonly identified using artificial marking techniques, such as toe clipping and microchipping. However, many species in this group may be strong candidates for visual identification from photographs given intraspecific variability in skin features. We investigated the potential for dorsal skin patterns to be used as natural markers for the photo‐identification of both juveniles and adults of the green and golden bell frog (Litoria aurea). This is a threatened species that has come under intense population monitoring using capture‐mark‐recapture procedures primarily involving the use of artificial markers, with no apparent investigation of the potential for natural markers to be used instead. We collected photographs of marked individuals to determine the level of intraspecific variability in dorsal patterning within a population. This photo‐database was subsequently used to create an online survey in which participants were asked to match separate images of query frogs from small image pools by comparing dorsal patterns. Photographs were taken on a smartphone device under field conditions to test whether this technique could be applied to the study of wild populations with little cost or expertise required. We showed that dorsal patterns are clear and distinct among L. aurea individuals and easily visualised from field‐acquired images to detect recapture events by eye with a low error rate. While an overwhelming majority of adults possessed dorsal patterning that can be easily distinguished by eye, juveniles often showed a complete absence of patterning, suggesting that photo‐identification may be more effective for adult stages. Nevertheless, we highlight the feasibility of collecting visual information on the natural markings of a threatened anuran, providing evidence that it may be used as a supplementary form of identification alongside more traditional techniques, highlighting a potential direction for the future monitoring of this species.