Category Archives: How You Can Help

04/28/12

Save the Frogs Day 2012!

Today is Save the Frogs Day, the world’s largest day of amphibian education and conservation action, organized by Save the Frogs, an organization dedicated to protecting the world’s amphibian species, founded by ecologist Dr. Kerry Kriger.

Funds raised in the many Save the Frogs Day events go in part for grants to help amphibian projects in developing countries that have high rates of deforestation, including Nepal, Madagascar, and Liberia. Without funds from Save the Frogs, these projects might not have been possible.

At Frogs Are Green, we would like to encourage you to check out the events that are going on today around the world, and also to urge you to do something, even something small, to help out. Educating just one person about the plight of amphibians will help.

One-third of all amphibians are at risk of extinction and we should be concerned. After all, we humans also share this planet with amphibians, a planet that seems to have become too unhealthy for an entire group of animals. By saving frogs, we also save ourselves.

Please see the Save the Frogs site for lots of suggestions for getting involved on Save the Frogs Day—and everyday.

Here’s a cool t-shirt you can buy over at Save the Frogs:

04/17/12

Earth Day 2012: Plant a Tree!

This Earth Day, our theme is simple: Plant a tree. We were inspired by a recent op-ed by Jim Robbins in the New York Times: “Why Trees Matter. “And we were also inspired by the beauty of the springtime trees around us.

At Stevens Institute, Hoboken. Photo by Mary Jo Rhodes

In the NY Times piece, Robbins explains how trees are at the forefront of climate change. Hot, drier weather is stressing, and often killing, trees worldwide. The examples he cites include some of North America’s most ancient trees, the alpine bristlecone forests, which are falling victim to a voracious beetle and an Asian fungus. Prolonged droughts have killed more than five million urban shade trees last year. In the Amazon, two severe droughts have killed billions more.

And yet, trees perform essential functions that we don’t always appreciate. Here are a few Robbins highlights:

  • Through photosynthesis, trees turn sunlight into food for insects, wildlife, and people (apple or pear anyone?), as well as create wood for fuel, furniture, and homes. Trees contribute to our emotional well being by providing beauty in our surroundings and much needed shade.
  • When tree leaves decompose, they leach acids into the ocean that help fertilize plankton. When plankton thrive, so does the rest of the food chain. Fishermen have replanted forests along coasts and rivers to successfully bring back depleted fish and oyster stocks.
  • Trees release beneficial chemicals that seems to help regulate the climate; others are anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral. Aspirin’s active ingredient, for example, comes from willows.
  • Trees are the planet’s heat shield. They keep the concrete and asphalt of cities and suburbs 10 or more degrees cooler and protect our skin from the sun’s harsh UV rays.

Plant a Tree

I live in one of the most densely populated cities in the U.S. Some years ago, I planted a small tree (about a foot high, purchased from a nursery) in our backyard with my sons. The tree is now about 20 feet high and we enjoy watching the leaves change each fall and the birds hanging out on the branches.

No matter where you live, you can plant a tree.

Even if you live in an apartment and don’t have a back yard, you might be able to find a tree-planting initiative in your city. New York City, for example, has an initiative called MillionTreesNYC, in which volunteers plant trees or adopt trees and care for them after they’re planted.

View of Empire State Building, at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken. Photo by Mary Jo Rhodes.

And, of course, our amphibian friends need trees, especially those arboreal frogs in the Hylidae family, many of which live in tropical and temperate forests.

For more information (including information about where to buy tree seedlings), see the Arbor Day Foundation.

Happy Earth Day!

04/4/12

How Does a Toad Cross the Road? With a lot of Help from their Friends

As the days are getting longer and the sun is getting warmer in the Northern Hemisphere, a young male toad’s thoughts turn to love – it’s mating time for amphibians. Unfortunately this springtime ritual is often fraught with danger for frogs and toads. As we were looking for stories for this week’s post, we noticed a lot of stories about how people in Britain and the U.S. are helping toads make this important but dangerous journey. Here are a few:

Great Britain

Blades of glass rustle as hundreds — if not thousands — of toads spring forth from hibernation, each one a bloated, wart-ridden, writhing mass of arms of legs. Then, wide-eyed and kamikaze-like, they fall from the high kerb [curb] before making a desperate dash across the road, determined to reach their hereditary breeding ground. (As reported by  in the Henley Standard, Henley-on-Thames, England)

Unfortunately the toads in Henley must contend with a human-created challenge — rush-hour. Local toad patrols, however, are helping the toads cross the road. This year they’ve saved 7,500 toads from road death.  The toad patrols can’t stop traffic, but motorists slow down when they see their toad crossing signs and their high-visibility jackets.

Henley Wildlife Group Toad Patrol, courtesy of the Henley Standard, Henley-on-Thames, England

Volunteers spent every night of the past month helping toads by carrying them in buckets. The Toad Patrol happens every year and saves about 80 per cent of the migrating population of toads.

The BBC reports that in Northhampshire, England, hundreds of toads make a yearly one-mile journey from a woodland across a number of roads to an area that is now a housing development in the village of St. Crispins, to the south of Northampton.

Many toads are squashed by cars and dozens more fall into drains as they try to get back to where they were born. But those that do make it alive will find that the pond has been replaced by buildings. Donna Robins, a toad patroller, was quoted in the article as saying: “My house is on the woodland where they used to live, I feel responsible. I see them getting killed every night on the road.”

In Edinburgh, Scotland, the Historic Scotland Rangers are helping out with the toad annual ‘Watch Out, Toads About,‘ which helps toads migrate. Early every morning Rangers carry out patrols to check the nooks, crannies, and drains in Holyrood Park to make sure each toad gets to its destination safely.

In winter the toads live around Arthur’s Seat [the beautiful small mountain right outside the city] and Dunsapie Loch. In order to get to where they spawn, they must cross a public road with high curbs. When the toads are tired and hungry they can become disoriented and may be unable to make that last leap to safety. Volunteers are needed to help the roads cross the road safely.

United States

As reported in the Roxborough (PA) Patch.com, frogs and toads are on the move and in an annual tradition,the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education has helped them along.

photo courtesy The Schuylkill Environmental Center

The environmental group coordinates volunteer shifts to aid the toads crossing roads. There’s lots of information about volunteering on their site. After the toads breed, the toadlets, about the size of a fingernail, make their move from May 15 to June 30 and hop back to the woods, so volunteers can pitch in later, too.

Recently, according to the Provincetown (MA) Journal, the Cape Cod National Seashore issue an announcement that beginning this spring and continuing through October, certain local roads will  be closed at times, particularly on rainy nights, to protect the spadefoot toad, which is listed by the state as a threatened species.

These unusual toads, one of 12 species of amphibians found within the Seashore, use shallow, temporary ponds for breeding, and the surrounding uplands to feed. They migrate to and from these ponds on rainy nights, especially when the water table is high and temperatures are above 48 degrees.

The toads must cross paved roads, and during such crossings many of these well-camouflaged creatures are unfortunately killed by moving vehicles. Thus there is a need for carefully timed, strategic, temporary detours.

The Province Lands area of Cape Cod is one of the last strongholds for the eastern spadefoot toad in Massachusetts, and the public’s cooperation — and forbearance — is urged in the effort to ensure their survival.

As reported in the article [and mentioned as a difficult issue in some of the other articles cite above], sometimes the public isn’t very enthusiastic about the measures to help amphibians:

A related challenge to protecting these elusive creatures is raising the public’s consciousness about their importance environmentally. By their very nature, spadefoot toads do not attract the throngs of admirers that, say, whales do. Because of their size, habits and habitat, the toads are hard to find and quantify, and are challenging to study. Further, by most standards, they are not very glamorous — except perhaps to herpetologists.

While their tiny, almost invisible close “cousins” the spring peepers can claim status for their joyful, lilting songs that herald the arrival of spring on the Cape, the pained dyspeptic croaking of a spadefoot induces no similar elation. However, in the larger environmental scheme of things they are important marvels of adaptation….

The public can listen in on recordings of frog and toad calls, as well as discussions on amphibian ecology, via links to podcasts and videos on the Seashore’s website. At Frog are Green, we’d like to wish these toads “safe travels” and applaud all  the Toad Patrols in the US and the UK who are helping them along on their journeys.

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

08/6/11

The Froglog: Helps Frogs Avoid Drowning in Pools

This summer, my family and I have been visiting public gardens in the New York area and have noticed something in each one we’ve visited—drowned frogs in the gardens’ fountains and pools. We thought we’d repeat a blog post from a couple of years ago about this problem. It has such an easy solution: frogs just need a way out of the pools. I watched some frogs trying to climb out of the stone pools and they weren’t able to get out. They need a ramp, a step, or some other way to escape. Here’s one way that frogs can escape: The Froglog.

A couple of summers ago, we received a wonderful photograph taken by Mary Lascelles for our photo contest of a frog (whom she named Fritz) who hung out on the filter line in her pool sunning himself. Luckily, Fritz never fell in the pool.

fritz-mary-lascelles

Unfortunately many frogs do fall in pools and are poisoned by chlorine, which is absorbed into their bloodstream through their permeable skin. Recently on the Mother Nature Network blog, I read about a new invention, called a Froglog, that is an escape ramp that helps frogs and other small animals escape from pools.

The froglog was created by Rich Mason, a wildlilfe biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who was disturbed that so many frogs and other animals were dying in pools. The froglog is a thick foam tile with angled edges that allow frogs to climb out of the pool. The froglog can also be used in hot tubs, spas, fountains, and backyard ponds.

As Mason writes on his website, due to suburban sprawl, pools are now often built close to the natural habitats of amphibians. He mentions a friend with a pool in Maryland who found over 50 animals trapped in his pool in one night.

Check out this video of frogs and turtles using the froglog escape ramp. And if you have a pool, fountain, etc… and live in an area with lots of wildlife, definitely consider getting a froglog!

06/2/11

Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Help Frogs and Other Amphibians

I imagine in the early days of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was not thinking about how his innovative new social networking site might help wildlife. But being globally connected by social media can speed the spread of information and help in conservation efforts.

Because up to one-third of all amphibians are endangered and many species are on the brink of extinction, it makes sense to take advantage of the incredible power of social media to help amphibian conservation efforts in an efficient and cost-effective way.

We’ve recently learned about a new project called The Global Amphibian Blitz , an on-line information sharing hub for non-professional naturalists and biologists to track and record sightings of amphibians around the world.  This information will then help professional researchers to document and determine where conservation efforts are most needed. It also seems to be a great way for those who care about frogs and other amphibians to connect with each other.

 If you’re an amateur herpetologist, please consider becoming a part of the Global Amphibian Blitz. The YouTube video below explains how to participate in the project:

The Global Amphibian Blitz partners are Amphibia Web, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, Amphibian Ark, Neotropical Conservation. and iNaturalist.org.