THE PROVENCE (Vancouver, British Columbia) 06 August 03 Croaking frogs make a comeback (Bob Keating)
Biologists from the Kootenays will release buckets full of Northern leopard frogs this week and pray the little critters survive and multiply.
The species was once one of the most common frogs in the West but in the early 1980s they started dying off. The situation got so bad the Alberta government put out signs asking: Have you seen this frog? In B.C., leopard frogs were wiped out everywhere except in the fertile marshes of the Creston Valley.
"When people have such a common species they don't really pay much attention to them," said biologist Marc Beaucher. "Suddenly people noticed the leopard frogs were dying and we don't know why."
Scientists believe pesticides and global warming may be killing off some of the frogs and a deadly fungus is finishing off the rest. Whatever the cause, frog populations are disappearing all over the world with the leopard frog being one of the worst victims. They are listed as endangered in B.C.
"They just should not be disappearing like this," said Beaucher.
He and other biologists have been rearing the frogs in the Creston Valley for almost four years.
Every spring they tromp through the marshes looking for the softball-sized egg masses laid by adult females and rear the tadpoles in captivity where they have a better chance at survival.
"Their disappearance is a biological indicator that the health of the environment is just not that good," said Beaucher.
A few hundred of the frogs will be released today around Creston. A few thousand more will be let loose tomorrow near Cranbrook.
If the frogs thrive, it will be first time they have lived in the Cranbrook area in two decades.
Croaking frogs make a comeback