FRESNO BEE (California) 02 March 08 Face to face with frogs - Nationally known expert hopes to bring amphibious world to Fresno Chaffee Zoo. (Marc Benjamin)
The Valley is known for fog -- not frogs. But that will change if Andy Snider has anything to say about it.
Snider, 47, director of animal care and conservation at Fresno Chaffee Zoo, is a nationally known amphibian and reptile expert. Frogs are a specialty. And Snider hopes to make frogs and other amphibians a specialty at Fresno's zoo.
This year -- leap year -- is being called the Year of the Frog by conservation groups worldwide. Fresno Chaffee Zoo and zoos across the country are making amphibian projects a high priority to raise awareness about the danger of extinction facing one-third of amphibian species worldwide.
Fresno Chaffee Zoo has 20 amphibian species on display, a number that has quadrupled since Snider's arrival 16 months ago.
Within a month, Snider said, the zoo will have new amphibian exhibits. One will feature wormlike amphibians called caecilians, and another will be for Vietnamese mossy frogs. A third exhibit has not been determined.
In addition, a talking frog bank will be on display in front of the Reptile House. After a coin is placed in the frog's mouth, he will proffer a pithy frog adage, such as: "If I am what I eat, then how come I can't fly?"
Later this year, the Maddis House will be renovated with a rain forest theme and include reptiles, amphibians, fish and mammals.
Maddis House, which was home to tropical birds for 12 years, has been closed nearly six years.
The additions give the zoo something new to offer visitors while it works on larger plans for expansion, which are expected to take several years to complete.
Amphibians are considered an easy addition for a zoo because they don't take up much space. But their survival often depends on specialized care and expertise.
Chaffee Zoo director Lewis Greene said Snider has the necessary expertise, and he rounds out a Fresno staff that leans toward primates and large mammals.
"He has knowledge of birds and mammals, but he gravitates more to amphibians," Greene said.
Raised in New York state, Snider also spent time visiting relatives in Florida as a boy. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in zoology. After working at a zoo outside Orlando for three years, he moved to New Orleans, where he worked with Greene.
Snider arrived in Fresno in 2006 from Detroit Zoological Institute.
In Detroit, he was instrumental in building the National Amphibian Conservation Center, a $7 million, 12,000-square-foot facility dedicated to the conservation of caecilians, salamanders and frogs.
In Fresno, Snider has melded his zoo duties with several other animal projects.
He maintains the North American genetic records for Chinese crocodile lizards and Siamese crocodiles.
Snider has had a lifelong interest in amphibians and reptiles because of the fascinating variety of defenses, diets and abilities each possesses.
He describes crocodile lizards as laid-back, snail-eating creatures that "are spectacularly cool."
But he has learned from another keeper that they also "bite, and they bite hard."
In addition, he visits Armenia every year to track and study viper populations.
"It's important that people we have be well rounded, and that it not just be about Fresno," Greene said.
In Armenia, Snider and Jeff Ettling, curator of herpetology at the St. Louis Zoo, are collecting DNA information about the snakes and trying to learn how much land is needed to maintain snake populations.
Their search for vipers may eventually take them into Turkey and Iran, where there are similar vipers that may not be in the Armenian viper family.
"Andy and I came from the same cloth," Ettling said. "A lot of our friends outgrew keeping snakes. We are just big kids living out our childhood dreams."
Snider also has been involved in a program to restore populations of yellow-legged frogs in Southern California, a species whose documented population has fallen to between 100 and 150 in Southern California's mountains, said Robert Fisher, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
About 60 yellow-legged frog eggs were saved from a fire-ravaged area of Southern California and are being kept at the Conservation and Research for Endangered Species Center in San Diego. Eventually, the frogs that hatch will be released -- and some will be coming to the zoo in Fresno, Fisher said.
"Andy seems really well-suited for this, and there are so many endangered frogs and amphibians," Fisher said. "We haven't had his kind of expertise out here [in California]."
Greene said zoos can be involved in international conservation programs -- the Chaffee Zoo is helping to reintroduce the antelopelike addax in Tunisia -- and zoos also can play a role in local animal conservation efforts.
"If there are California species that need help, and we have the expertise to work with that program," Greene said, "we want to be part of it."
Face to face with frogs