California red-legged frog workshop

On Monday, April 14, 2008 and Tuesday, April 15, 2008 I attended a workshop on surveying for California red-legged frogs (CRLF), a threatened species. CRLFs are found in wetlands along the California coast from San Francisco Bay south to San Diego. Needless to say, we are continually surveying for them at work! You need a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor them (I go along with my co-workers under their permits) - I am currently working towards getting my own permit (which means LOTS of surveying). This workshop was a big step in the right direction - I learned the proper techniques to survey for them at night and for their eggs and tadpoles. The workshop was held at the Elkhorn Slough near Moss Landing, CA. It is a beautiful place - I highly suggest taking an afternoon to visit or go for a little kayak ride if you're in the Monterey Bay Area.



A picture of a CRLF I took at Guadalupe in February. You're probably asking yourself, where are the red legs?! They're on the inside of the thighs (if you look closely you can see faint red on the frog's left hind leg), but they can vary from not red to scarlet. They are the largest native frog in California.


On Monday night I attended an eye-shine survey from 8pm to 12am. We all got in our waders and surveyed for frogs from the bank. We got to catch them and look at them up close - they're super easy to catch since they don't scare easily. The ponds we surveyed had 500-700 frogs in them, so there were plenty to look at (usually I only survey ponds with less than 10 frogs in them!). It was cold and wet (the right leg of my wader was leaking) but a lot of fun!



Here is a picture of a CRLF egg-mass I took at Guadalupe in February. Of these thousands of eggs, on average only one male and one female frog make it to adulthood to reproduce.

On Tuesday morning we had a classroom session and Tuesday afternoon we went and studied tadpoles and good habitat. It was time well spent!