Frogs 24/10/09

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says about 500 endangered Oregon spotted frogs have been released this fall at a lake on the Fort Lewis Army base near Tacoma. It's the second year that the tiny frogs have been released at Dailman Lake, which is part of the frogs' historic habitat. The frogs once ranged from southwestern British Columbia to northeastern California. But loss of habitat and nonnative predators decimated their numbers, and the state listed it as endangered in 1997. The frog now is only known to be in Washington's Klickitat and Thurston counties. The frogs spent their first nine months in captive rearing programs at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, Portland's Oregon Zoo, and the Cedar Creek Corrections Center near Olympia, where inmates helped raise them. *Seattle PI

Frog gardens 17/11/09

Urban frog rehabilitation is most effective where local communities work together to build frog habitat at a diversity of scales - from individual frog-friendly gardens through to larger ponds and watercourses designed to offer suitable frog breeding habitats.

You too could have a frog paradise in your backyard. People wanting to build frog-friendly habitat can see how best to go about it by visiting demonstration sites, several of which have been made already including Parks Victoria's Serendip Sanctuary, Pearcedale Conservation Park, and another in Portland.

Frogs 17/11/09

Everyone knows that frogs are in trouble and that some species have disappeared, but a recent analysis of Central American frog surveys shows the situation is worse than had been thought.
Under pressure from a fungal disease, the frogs in this biodiversity hot spot are undergoing "a vast homogenization" that is leaving behind impoverished communities that increasingly resemble one another.