GARDEN CITY TELEGRAM (Kansas) 03 March 08 Feelin' froggy (Emily Behlmann)
More then 250 people spent a sunny day at Lee Richardson Zoo Saturday, hopping with flippers like frogs, fishing for insects like frogs and creating their own paper frogs.
Zoo Education Curator Andrea Smith said the message of the event was simple: "Frogs are cool."
Saturday's Year of the Frog Fest at Lee Richardson Zoo was intended to be like events at Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited institutions across the country.
The AZA states that its purpose in promoting frog festivals as close as possible to Feb. 29, or "Leap Day," was to emphasize amphibian conservation during what it has declared the Year of the Frog.
The frog was chosen for special focus because the animal, along with toads, salamanders, newts and other amphibians, are facing extinction as a result of habitat degradation and the infectious disease chytridiomycosis, according to the AZA Web site.
The World Conservation Union estimates that at least one-third of known amphibian species are threatened with extinction.
But Smith said she wasn't so worried about the young children at Saturday's event remembering all those specifics. Instead, the zoo was more focused on promoting a general appreciation of animals.
However, some of the children participating in the games and activities did come away with other knowledge, too.
Logan Smith, 12, said he learned more about how frogs can adapt to their environment, with skills for survival in the water and on dry land. The event also taught him more about the way the creatures change from tadpoles to frogs during their life cycle, he said.
A craft called "pollywog to frog" was meant to demonstrate that concept, according to Brian Kutsch, zoo education assistant.
Children cut out a frog body and legs, plus a tadpole's tail, and attached them with brads, so they could tuck the legs or tail beneath the body, depending on the stage of the frog's life cycle.
Besides changing from tadpole to adult, frogs can jump, said Luke Koehn after finishing a race in which he had to jump like a frog by wearing swim flippers.
Using the flippers on land was "kind of hard," said Koehn, who attended the event with friends to celebrate his sixth birthday.
Pedro Asebedo, 9, agreed that racing like a frog was tough, despite winning on his first attempt.
"It's not comfortable," he said. "They're hard to run in."
The Year of the Frog Fest also offered the opportunity to sign an Amphibian Crisis Promise from AZA. Signers promised to learn more about how to help amphibians to survive, spread the word to others, follow environmentally safe practices like recycling, and create an amphibian-friendly backyard habitat.
That habitat could come in the form of a "toad abode," which zoo staff demonstrated on Saturday.
The abode was made from a clay pot placed on the ground, upside down, propped up with a small rock. According to the AZA, a toad that moves into the abode would protect a garden from insects and use the home for a lifetime -- up to 10 years.
Kutsch said he thought it was important to give participants something they could do in their own backyards.
"I don't just want them to come to the zoo and learn about amphibians," he said. "I'd like them to go home and do something."
Feelin' froggy