U.S. Sets Protections For Celebrated Frogs
4.1 million acres of 'critical habitat' set aside to shelter dwindling red-legged jumpers

Jane Kay
Wednesday, March 7, 2001

The federal government designated 4.1 million acres yesterday as "critical habitat" for the California red-legged frog, the West's best-known amphibian jumper, in an effort to bring back the threatened species.

The once abundant red-legged frog -- which starred in a Mark Twain story about a frog-jumping competition in Calaveras County -- has declined to a record low population, occupying only about three-quarters of its former vast range.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulations, developed as a result of an environmental lawsuit, mean that public agencies must consider the 5-inch frog when making development decisions that might harm it in this territory.

The regulations do not apply to private property owners unless they receive federal funds or legal permits for activities. Also exempt from the new protections are towns, shopping centers and roads, which are already developed.

The frog, once a popular playmate for kids in California streams, has an olive or reddish-hued back marked by small black flecks and larger dark blotches. Its rusty-red belly and undersides of its hind legs have won it its moniker.

Wildlife officials can't say how many there are or once were in California. But they believe they have disappeared from 70 percent of their range.

Wildlife officials blame the frog's decline on development, the introduction of predatory bullfrogs and other exotic species, and pollution and depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, which increases exposure to radiation.

"The worldwide occurrences of amphibian declines and deformities may be an early warning to us of serious ecosystem imbalances," said Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Patricia Foulk.

"The frog's decline signals a loss of diversity and environmental quality in wetlands and streams that are essential to clean water and to the survival of most fish and wildlife species," Foulk said.

The California red-legged frog was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1996.

Three years later, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund filed suit on behalf of the Jumping Frog Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation and others, alleging that Fish and Wildlife had failed to protect the frog's habitat.

The newly designated critical habitat is scattered throughout 28 counties, from the coast to the Sierra Nevada. The range is so fragmented that only four regions contain populations of frogs numbering more than 350.

The habitat constitutes more than 4 percent of the state. Scientists say these lands are essential because they provide the frog with the necessary habitat for food, water, shelter and breeding sites to grow the population.

In the Bay Area, sites include those near Sears Point in Sonoma and Marin counties, American Canyon Creek and Sulphur Springs Creek in Napa and Solano counties, and Bolinas Lagoon, Point Reyes and Tomales Bay in Marin County.

Others are the Belvedere Lagoon watershed adjacent to the Tiburon Peninsula, coastal watersheds in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, North Fork Feather River watershed in Butte and Plumas counties and Weber Creek and North Fork Cosumnes River watersheds in El Dorado County.