Dispersive movements are often thought to be multiclausal and driven by individual body size, sex, conspecific density, environmental variation and/or other factors. Yet such factors rarely account for most of the variation present among dispersive movements in nature, leaving open the possibility that dispersion might be indeterministic and vary in response to environmental stochasticity. We assessed the amount of variation in movement distances that could be accounted for by potential predictors of dispersal with a large empirical dataset of movement distances performed by Fowler’s Toads (Anaxyrus fowleri) on the northern shore of Lake Erie at Long Point, Ontario (2002 – 2021, incl.). These toads are easy to sample repeatedly, can be identified individually and undertake dispersive movements parallel to the shoreline on a daily basis as they forage at night. Using a linear mixed-effect model that incorporated random effect terms to account for sampling variance and inter-year environmental variation, we found that all potential predictors of dispersive movements of these animals were, at best, weak predictors that accounted for virtually none of the variation observed among movement distances. We also used linear regression models to test for the impact of environmental stochasticity on dispersive movements and identified a strong positive correlation between the distribution of toad movement distances and variability in lake water level. We conclude that deterministic proximal factors, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, neither can be shown nor are necessary to drive dispersive movements in this population. Variation in dispersive movements can be ascribed, instead, to environmental unpredictability, consistent with nomadism.