Helping to bring awareness of the frog extinction crisis
Take a leap! Join our cause to raise awareness about the threats frogs face in the world's changing environment, and to spread the message that healthy frogs mean a healthy planet for all.
Welcome to our blog,
FROGS ARE GREEN! For over 200 million years, ponds, marshes, grasslands, and rain forests have come alive with the calls of frogs. Yet these remarkable and colorful animals are declining at such a rapid rate that they are being called the Earth’s next dinosaurs. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, a third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction. To read more, click here!
Visit our Press page to see interviews and news features.
Teachers:
Calling all Frog Artists!
Susan and I are seeking kids’ frog art—lots of it! We hope to encourage kids and their teachers to learn about and get interested in frogs, toads, and other amphibians. If you’re an elementary school teacher, parent, or educator, please send us jpegs (2mb maximum size) of your students’ or kids’ drawings or paintings of frogs and we will display them in school group galleries on the FROGS ARE GREEN blog. We’d be happy to receive images of any art form—sculpture, drawing, painting, or watercolor.
Read more>>
Announcing the winner of our first "Frogs Are Green" photo contest! Congratulations to Jocelyn Hyers, whose winning photograph of a green tree frog was taken in Pierce County, Georgia, USA. To see her photo click here!
Do you do fieldwork or amphibian research with a zoo, environmental organization, university, or government agency? If so, please consider writing a guest post for us about your work (@300 words). Email it to us at: info@frogsaregreen.com.
I remember the first Earth Day forty years ago. I did a project with my friend Linda about endangered animals. Everyone in the entire school went outside on a gorgeous spring day to pick up garbage on the roads around the school. We were all so excited.
I think people forget that everyone was excited about Earth Day and about helping the environment then. The issue hadn’t become politicized. The country was united after the polluted Cuyahoga River went up in flames.
Both Democrats and Republicans in Washington supported and passed clear air and water regulations. These new tough laws were incredibly effective. When I was kid growing up on Long Island, you knew you were getting close to New York City because you could see and smell a layer of brown smog above the city. After these regulations were passed, the smog disappeared. Since the Reagan administration, however, tough regulations against corporations and businesses are taboo.
I wish we could recapture this bipartisan environmental effort. President Obama was elected partly because so many young people, motivated by environmental issues, voted for him. It didn’t matter if they were on the right or the left.
On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, we’d like you to ignore the politics and recapture this excitement about preserving the environment and about enjoying and reconnecting to nature.
To that end, we’re sponsoring an Earth Day contest (open to all ages). Please send us one simple practical idea by April 19th that we can all use to help the environment or reconnect with nature, guided by these words:
RENEW
REBUILD
RECONNECT
RETHINK
It doesn’t have to be a grand or complicated idea. For example, maybe someone can think of a way for people to remember to bring reusable grocery bags to the store. The winner, announced on Earth Day, will receive either the poster above or below or a t-shirt or onesie (their choice):
Dr. Kerry Kriger, conservation biologist, founder, and Executive Director of the amphibian conservation organization, Save the Frogs, first conceived of and coordinated this event in 2009. The goal of Save the Frogs Day is to raise awareness about the global amphibian extinction, and to get people of all ages involved in amphibian conservation efforts. On his Save the Frogs website, Dr. Kriger has a powerpoint presentation that can be downloaded, lesson plans for teachers, and many other ideas for students to get involved.
You might consider putting up a display in your school or community center. Susan and I recently put up a display at City Hall in Hoboken, New Jersey, with frog books, drawings of frogs we’ve received from kids, illustrated posters, a poster about the global amphibian decline, and so on. So many people stopped to look at the display as we were putting it up. They were genuinely surprised to learn that amphibians were in such danger.
FROGS ARE GREEN display currently at City Hall, Hoboken, New Jersey
You can download our mission poster (seen above on the right and left in the display) or a poster of a rainforest tree frog in our store. We also have eco-bands made from 100% recycled silicone, other posters, and t-shirts (proceeds go toward Save the Frogs and Amphibian Ark ).
You may also want to throw a Save the Frogs Day party with fun frog-related party favors.
Please send us your event ideas or JPEGs of your Save the Frogs Day event and we will post them in a gallery on our blog!
This past week the first monogamous frogs were discovered in the rainforest of South America. Monogamy isn’t usual in the amphibian world. Male frogs usually love ‘em and leave ‘em.
But Dr. Jason Brown, previously of East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, and his colleagues, discovered a monogamous frog species Ranitomeya imitator, known as the mimic poison frog,
According to the BBC Earth News article, “Peru Poison Frog Reveals Secret of Monogamy,” after mating, a female mimic poison frog lays her eggs on the surface of leaves. After the tadpoles hatch, the male frog carries them one by one on his back to pools of water that collect in bromeliad leaves high up in the branches of trees. Each tadpole is put into its own tiny pool and the father looks after them. When the tadpoles become hungry, the male calls to his female partner who lays a non-fertile egg, which the tadpole eats, in each pool.
Why are these frogs monogamous and others aren’t? Scientists believe the mimic poison frogs have become mongamous as they evolved to live in small pools. The frogs wouldn’t have survived without the care of both mother and father because there is little natural food in these tiny pools. If the pools were bigger, there would have been more available food and the the frogs wouldn’t have to work together to feed and raise the tadpoles.
“These frogs are truly devoted to their offspring, and to each other,” says Dr. Brown, who is now at Duke University.
Father and mother R. imitator frogs guard a leaf pool where the mother just deposited a nutritious egg for the tadpole to eat. Photo by Jason Brown, from Science magazine site
In October, when we wrote our post Winter Turns Frogs into Frogsicles, the wood frogs and spring peepers had settled down for their long (frozen) winter nap. This blog post from The National Parks Traveler, Frogs are a Sure Sign of Spring, But that Doesn’t Mean You Won’t Hear Them Now, reminds us that even though it’s still winter (at least in the Northeast), it’s almost spring for the wood frogs. As the snow melts and the frogs unfreeze in late winter/early spring, the young frogs have one thing on their minds: the males start calling immediately to potential mates.
I found this lovely video on YouTube by someone called Mysterious Susan (not our Susan though). It does have a mysterious quality as a reminder of the cycle of life.
Also, check out this blog post, “As Winter Wanes,” in the East Hampton (Long Island, New York) Star about what songbirds, salamanders, and other animals are up to as we approach spring and the daylight hours get longer every day.
