04-08-2004 - Biodiversity

sagar: Author=’Eleanor Imster’ program=’4112′ video=”Rana muscosa; Mountain Yellow-legged Frog. Photo © 2004 William Flaxington._JB:_ This Earth and Sky. Around now, researchers are wading through a small creek in California’s San Bernardino Mountains – the area hardest-hit by wildfires half a year ago.

_DB:_ They’ll be listening for a sound that means survival for a species – the “plop” of mountain yellow legged frogs as the frogs jump into the water. Yellow-legged frogs were common in the San Bernardino Mountains – until flood control measures, beginning in the 1930s, rerouted interconnected streams into large concrete channels. Now one creek, called City Creek, holds – or held – the last population of these frogs.

_JB:_ Frogs flee to the water during wildfires – but post-fire flooding might have finished them. Rain sweeps the loose sediment off the soil and washes everything – including frogs – downstream. In early November, when there were still frogs left, biologists netted a dozen and moved them to the LA Zoo. But this past Christmas day, the most massive flooding in decades washed the whole bottom of the channel downstream.

_DB:_ If biologists don’t find any frogs in California’s City Creek soon, they might move some of the zoo frogs back in. And if any frogs have survived or can be made to survive in the wild, there’s a chance that they can repopulate. Their prey – aquatic insects – are already back. Special thanks today to the “National Fish and Wildlife Foundation”:http://www.nfwf.org/ and to the “US Forest Service”:http://www.fs.fed.us/. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

Written by EarthSky