Author Archives: Susan

11/19/11

Please Skip Black Friday: Celebrate Green Monday Instead

Black Friday is almost upon us, and at Frogs Are Green, we’d like you to consider skipping this obnoxious super-shopping day and to participate instead in Green Monday, sponsored by the Nature Conservancy.

Rather than joining the throngs at the mall or the big box stores, why not feel good about the season by contributing time or money to a worthy organization, buying merchandise from these animal/conservation/green organizations, or giving a donation in someone’s name. Especially during a recession, these organizations really need our help. Here are some we came up with. Please let us know in the comments if there are others you would recommend:

Save the Frogs. Dr. Kerry Kriger is a one-man frog advocate. Go to the Save the Frogs site to check out all the activities going on there. How about adopting a frog for a frog-loving friend or family member?

Sea Turtle Conservancy. While you are it, why not adopt a sea turtle, too? When you adopt a sea turtle from the Sea Turtle Conservancy, you get a lovely personalized certificate, a plastic turtle, get to name the turtle, track where the turtle is online, and it all comes in a beautifully designed folder. This makes a really nice gift—Susan and I have given them to friends and family.

Continuing the herpetological theme, The Sea Turtle Restoration Project has some really nice sea turtle items. Who needs a Lacoste polo when you can get one of these nifty sea turtle polo shirts. Proceeds from the sale of the shirts will go toward sea turtle conservation:

The National Wildlife Federation. The NWF has some great gifts: cards, plush animals, plant-a-tree jewelry, books, and so on. Here’s a book we liked for the gardeners in your family. It’s full of information about gardening for wildlife (including our amphibian friends), as well as information about everything you need to know to create a Certified Wildlife Habitat.

Consider supporting Heifer International. This makes a great group gift from a school, Scout troup, church, or synagogue. It’s a fun and meaningful project for kids to raise enough money to buy, for example, a gift of a heifer ($500). When a family receives a cow, every morning there’s a glass of rich milk for the children to drink before heading off to school. Classes are paid with the income from the sale of milk, and there’s even enough to share with the neighbors. The sale of surplus milk earns money for school fees, medicine, clothing, and home improvement. Less expensive gifts include a “Flock of Hope” ($60).

 
 

image courtesy of Heifer International

Support your local animal shelter. Animal shelters need volunteers to walk dogs, socialize cats, raise funds, etc. Of course, you might end up with a new member of the family, just in time for the holidays. An alternative to bringing an animal home is to sponsor a special-needs animal from the North Shore (NY) Animal League or another shelter.

So many of our posts this past year came from Conservation Organization’s Lost Frog Campaign. They are doing wonderful work around the world to save amphibians. While they don’t have a store, you can donate money to honor someone and they will send a personalized e-card.

You might want to Adopt an Acre for someone (from The Nature Conservancy). Here’s one we liked: an acre in Costa Rica, where “howler monkeys greet the break of dawn with a thunderous roar while scarlet macaws wing over treetops as the sun begins its slow trek across the sky. The rainforest is alive with a wealth of magnificent plant and wildlife, including jaguar, puma, sloths, tapirs, poison-dart frogs and four species of monkey.”

Adopt an Acre in Costa Rica

The Farm Sanctuary. I visited The Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY, with my family last fall and I can’t imagine a more bucolic place, with the most contented animals I’ve ever seen. We felt as if we were in a children’s picture book, but it was real. This organization provides a lifetime sanctuary for rescued and abused farm animals. Here’s their store, with books, apparel, etc.

A happy pig at the Farm Sanctuary, Watkins Glen, NY. Photo by Mary Jo Rhodes

Give your support to other less well known organizations: We were moved by last week’s guest post about The Beautiful Frog Association’s efforts in the Czech Republic to save the European Green Toad. Why not help support this cause or another cause that isn’t a household name, where your money will make a big impact? Some other causes we’ve featured on Frogs Are Green: Global Amphibian Blitz, Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project, The Endangered Western Leopard Toad (South Africa), and The Frog Caller.

We would also appreciate any help you can give us here at Frogs Are Green. This year, for example, our kids’ art contest really took off. We’ve received entries from children all over the world, and we’re proud that we have been able to spread our message to so many new people. How about buying a few wristbands as stocking stuffers for your frog-loving friends or family, or buying one of our lovely posters, 2012 calendar, or the Ribbit t-shirt below? Your purchase will help us as we develop our offshoot organization, Frogs Are Green Kids.

Please enjoy a lovely, stress-free, and GREEN holiday!

11/12/11

Guest post: Saving Toads in the Czech Republic

We were so excited to receive this guest post and photography from Jan Knizek in the Czech Republic. Please read about the efforts of Krásná žába, o.s. [Beautiful Frog Association] to help preserve the breeding area of the European Green Toad.

European Green Toad portrait

WHO WE ARE

Krásná žába, o.s. [Beautiful Frog Association] is a non-profit organisation that was founded with the aim to save one of few rare areas in Prague, Czech Republic, where European Green Toads can still breed.

2 month old baby toad

OUR CAUSE

In 2010, we had discovered a dwindling but still surviving population of the toads at a future building site, in an area where the toads once proliferated. However, due to development projects like the one we are currently fighting to stop, their population has been continually displaced.

Discovering a small surviving population of these admirable animals, which had practically disappeared from here years ago, was a great and joyful surprise, and we are determined to do everything we can to save their last remaining breeding ground in the area, which is vital to the survival of the animals.

Stopping a development project involves a lot of effort. We need to convince local authorities that giving preference to the environment over a developer’s interest is vital in this case, last but not least because the European Green Toad is on the IUCN red list of endangered species and protected within the EU. Bringing about the destruction of the local population of toads by wrecking its breeding ground would be a crime.

amplexus green toad

WHAT HAVE WE DONE SO FAR

We have therefore filed an application to have the area listed as a place of significant environmental interest and supplied authorities with plenty of photos and documents to prove that the green toad population is indigenous (i.e. it has not been attracted to the area only after the building site had been set up), and that the development project is in breach of the law and needs to be stopped.

We are also in close cooperation with the Czech TV Channel (Česká televize) who have made a documentary on the issue and aired it on the national TV Channel 1.

We have also found support amongst local people who took part in a charity musical event we organised to help us fund our activities, since many of them do know the area very well and are interested in its preservation for a whole range of reasons, last but not least the toads.

Organisations supporting our activities include the Czech Union for Nature Conservation (ČSOP) who have also provided a little financial contribution to our association.

Once we achieve an official recognition of the site as a natural reserve, we are planning on maintaining it in a condition that would be ideal for breeding of the local European Green Toads who come here every spring to lay eggs in seasonal pools of rain water. Preventing access of traffic and any adverse intervention into the toad’s natural habitat is vital. Another important thing is further education of local people who absolutely should be aware of how precious an area they live in.

So far we’ve been addressed by a number of organisations who were curious to know more about what we do, including an environmentally-focused youth club interested in a lecture on this local issue.

We have encountered displeasure on the part of some local authorities and developers, but we have also encountered a lot of interest and support amongst local people who would feel badly betrayed if the local government preferred financial interests (i.e. the developers’) over public welfare, an indispensable part of which is protection of the environment and conservation of nature.

croaking male green toad

THE VISION

At the beginning, there was an unsightly building site and a development project in progress. Local people were unaware of any problem and authorities were reluctant to listen.

At the moment, there is still an unsightly building site, but a part of the development project has been suspended and another part of it reduced so that the toad’s breeding ground we are most concerned about would not be affected. Many locals know about the European Green Toad now, have educated themselves about the development project, and are in support of our activities. Authorities have started communicating with us and have actually shown the first spark of interest in supporting our cause.

In the future, we hope there will be a beautiful green area where local people can come on a warm spring evening to sit and listen to the melodic croak of this exceptionally beautiful toad, smell the flowers and trees, and enjoy a small oasis of nature in the middle of a bustling city – that is our mission.

You can find more information about the European Green Toad and our activities at our website.

And if you have any questions, you are of course welcome to contact us any time.

tadpole microterritories green toad

flighting male green toads

10/30/11

What's Really Scary: A World without Bats

It’s almost Halloween and what animal is more associated with this spooky holiday than any other? The answer isn’t frogs, it’s bats.

Unlike frogs, however, which seem to have lots of human friends and supporters, bats have few. Most people find them pretty creepy. They’re associated with vampires and other scary things.

I learned about bats many years ago when I lived in Ohio. When I visited friends’ homes out in the country, bats would often emerge at sunset, and they were quite beautiful, flying up into the sky. I also watched a swarm of bats emerge at sunset from Carlsbad Canyons in New Mexico (see video below), a daily natural spectacle.

Did these bats make a beeline for the humans so they could bite them and suck their blood? No. They ignored us humans completely, focused instead on finding some tastier prey—mosquitoes and other insects.

Unfortunately bats seem to be sharing the fate of frogs and bees—they are vanishing because of a mysterious fungal disease. As Sandra Steingrabber writes in Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis: “The possible contribution of pesticides and climate change to the bats’ malady is a topic of discussion among field biologists—as is the synchronous vanishings of fungal-afflicted honeybees and frogs.”

In 2006 scientists found hundreds of dead bats inside several caves across the country—all had white muzzles, the result of a fungus. Bats with this white-nose disease were subsequently found in 115 different caves from Tennessee to Quebec. The fungus grows on the exposed skin of a hibernating bat and causes the bat to wake up, behave strangely, and burn up its fat reserves, thus starving to death.

The disease has claimed the lives of a million bats across 19 states. More than half of the bat species in the United States are in severe decline or are listed as endangered.

A World Without Bats

So what would the world be like without bats?

Imagine being swarmed by insects and bitten by mosquitoes from head to toe. Imagine pests wiping out agriculture across the country, causing produce prices to go up.

If the decline of bats continues these scary scenarios could be our reality.

We need these spooky, fast-flying mammals that can eat 1,200 insects in an hour, protecting us from the West Nile Virus and other deadly diseases.*

So this Halloween, amid all the Batman and vampire costumes, don’t forget that bats are pretty amazing—and important—animals that need our help. One way you can help bats is to build a bat house. Here’s some information from the National Wildlife Federation.

Here’s a video of Mexican free-tail bats emerging at sunset at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, to eat their evening meal of millions of insects:


For more information:

From the Incredible Disappearing Bat, Nature Conservancy site.

10/23/11

Contest Update: Frogs Are Green Kids Art Contest 2011

We’ve been so excited to receive entries for our kids’ art contest from children all over the United States, as well as entries from Canada, Scotland, Ireland, India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Hong Kong.

You can view the entries by either selecting the “galleries” link in the top navigation or by holding the cursor over the gallery thumbnails in the right sidebar, where you will see the Kids’ Art Contest 2011 among others. Once you click on the first piece of art, just click the forward and back arrows and you can view each piece of art in a slide show.

We’re so impressed by the variety of the art: from crayon, colored pencil, watercolors, and paintings to 3D sculptures, collage, and mixed media.

Honorable mention from our 2010 contest, by Li Hing Fung, Hong Kong

Honorable mention from our 2010 contest, by Li Hing Fung, Hong Kong

If you haven’t entered your artwork and would still like to, please click on the contest rules at the top of the blog. The age groups are 3-6, 7-9, and 10-12 and there will be a winner in each group. The winners will be featured in a post.

Also, if you’ve entered the contest, please don’t forget to send your address so we can send you a Frogs Are Green wristband after the contest is over. These wristbands are really nice—they’re smaller than the usual wristbands (youth size) so are good for kids. Susan and I wear our wristbands 24/7!*

Anyway, we’re so happy to see so many creative kids out there creating and expressing themselves for our favorite animal!

*Note: Our use of your address is a one-time thing. It won’t be saved or used for any purpose other than for sending the wristbands.

10/9/11

Winter is Coming: How Do Frogs Avoid Freezing?

Yesterday while shopping at the mall, I noticed that some stores had already begun putting up holiday decorations. The racks were filled with sweaters and down coats. We humans (at least in the northeast U.S.) are preparing for winter. But what about our amphibian friends? How do they prepare for winter? After all, frogs would seem vulnerable to extreme cold with their thin skins and their need to constantly stay moist.

Actually, we don’t need to worry about the frogs. They are well-equipped to deal with the cold weather, even with Arctic temperatures.

Frogs are ectothermic, which means that they rely on their environment to regulate their body temperature. Birds and mammals, including humans, are endotherms. We generate heat chemically and internally by breaking down food. The bodies of ectotherms reflect the air, ground, and water temperatures around them. One advantage that ectotherms have over mammals is that they can survive for long periods without eating.

In the fall, frogs first need to find a place to make their winter home, a living space called a hibernaculum that will protect them from weather extremes and from predators. The frog then “sleeps” away the winter by slowing down its metabolism. When spring arrives, it wakes up and leaves the hibernaculum, immediately ready for mating and eating.

Aquatic frogs and toads such as the leopard frog and American bullfrog usually hibernate underwater in streambeds or on pond bottoms. Because aquatic frogs need oxygen, they lie just above the mud, or only partially buried in the mud, so they are near the oxygen-rich water. They may even occasionally slowly swim around.

Terrestrial frogs and toads typically hibernate on land. Those frogs and toads that are good diggers like the American toads burrow deep into the soil, safely below the frost line. Other frogs, such as the wood frog and the spring peeper, aren’t good diggers and so must scout out their winter homes in deep cracks and crevices in logs or rocks, or they might dig down into the leaf litter.

These frozen peepers and wood frogs might look dead; their hearts have actually stopped beating. But the partially frozen frogs aren’t dead. Instead, they have a kind of natural anti-freeze in their bodies. Ice crystals form in their organs and body cavity, but a high concentration of glucose in the frogs’ vital organs prevents freezing. When spring approaches and its hibernaculum warms up above freezing, a frog’s frozen body will thaw, and it will come back to life.

As you go about preparing for winter, think of the frogs with their amazing adaptations for survival, safe in their winter homes, waiting for spring.

Here’s a video from YouTube about the hibernation of a wood frog. It’s pretty amazing—take a look!

This is a partial repost of an earlier post from December 2010. Most of the information from the post came from an article in Scientific American, How Do Frogs Survive the Winter? by Rick Emmer.

09/26/11

Is it a Frog or a Cat?: Newly Discovered Amphibians in India

At Frogs Are Green, we always enjoy the stories of newly discovered frog species and the re-discovery of frog species thought to be extinct. These stories counterbalance some of the less optimistic news stories about amphibians these days.

Recently in India, twelve new frog species were discovered, and three species were rediscovered. Scientists with Global Wildlife Conservation, led by biologist Sathyabhama Das Biju of the University of Delhi, spent years searching at night in the forests of Western Ghats, in Kerala, listening for frog calls.

Wayanad Night Frog India

Wayand Night Frog. Photo by Sathyabhama Das Biju/Global Wildlife Conservation from NationalGeographic.com

Some of the newly discovered frogs include:

The Meowing Night Frog (Nyctibatrachus poocha): Its croak sounds more like a cat than a frog.

The Jog’s Night Frog (Nyctibatrachus jog): Both males and females look after the eggs.

The Wayanad Night Frog (Nyctibatrachus grandis): It grows to about the size of a baseball and leaps from rock to rock.

The Coorg night frog (Nyctibatrachus sanctipalustris): This frog was described 91 years ago and was thought to be extinct, but has now been rediscovered.

The discoveries were published in the latest issue of international taxonomy journal Zootaxa, bringing the known number of frog species in India to 336.

Many of the newly found frogs in India are rare and are living in just a single area and so are especially vulnerable and will need rigorous protection. But most conservation in India is focused on the two most charismatic animals – the elephant and the tiger. According to Dr. Biju, there is little interest in amphibians, not much funding, and frog research is not easy.

In some parts of India, however, frogs are revered. They symbolize rain and prosperity and the end of a drought. We hope that these amazing amphibians are similarly revered and get the protection they need.

To see a slideshow of the frogs on Huffington Post, click here.

Thank you to Frogs Are Green friend Dana Breaux Kennedy for pointing us to the article about the newly discovered frogs in India.