These mountain yellow-legged froglets will soon be ready for release into the wild.
There is an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, if it takes a village to rear one Homo sapiens, then it certainly takes a lot of villagers to raise more than 500 mountain yellow-legged frog Rana muscosa tadpoles! In the spring of 2012, four females in our amphibian conservation lab each laid a clutch of eggs. A high level of fertility among the eggs resulted in 500 tadpoles.
Our goal with these animals is to raise them up from the tadpole life stage until metamorphosis. This will give the juvenile frogs a “headstart” that will reduce their vulnerability to predators when they are released into the wild this summer. The upcoming release will be the first time that mountain yellow-legged frogs will have been released into the wild in the frog life stage.
These tadpoles still have some changes to make!
We now have over 300 juvenile froglets housed in our amphibian conservation lab. Housing so many froglets has presented us with many challenges to maintain the excellent environmental and water quality conditions that this sensitive species requires.
Thankfully, we have a great team of researchers and dedicated volunteers here at the San Diego Zoo’s Beckman Center for Conservation Research to help us care for the tadpoles and monitor water-quality levels on a regular basis. San Diego Zoo volunteers are an essential part of ensuring that all our tailed tadpoles can graduate into foraging froglets. With many more tadpoles waiting to undergo metamorphosis, we are looking forward to the day when they have all graduated to the froglet stage so we can release them into the wild.
If you are interested in becoming a volunteer for the San Diego Zoo, check out our volunteer page.
Frank Santana is a research coordinator with the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. Read his previous post, Mountain Yellow-legged Frogs: Life beyond the City.
will all of the tadpoles be released in the San Diego area? will any tadpoles be released around Williamson Rock (off the Angeles Crest Highway)? I used to climb there and it was closed several years ago, I believe due to the dwindling numbers of the Mountain Yellow-legged Frog. I’ve kind of accepted that the Williamson Rock area will probably be closed off long term to hiking and climbing. but I am curious on the expectations of revitalizing the frog population there.
Thanks for the message Mosaic. Our research is actually focused on the mountain yellow-legged frog population in the San Jacinto Mountains. I am hopeful that what we learn from our reintroduction research can eventually be applied to the San Gabriel Mountain population and that the area can be re-opened sometime in the future. People like you who enjoy getting out and being in nature are great advocates for conservation and I appreciate your interest in the frogs!
thanks for the response. I actually used to climb and hike in the Idyllwild area. now I’m retired from climbing. Idyllwild and the surrounding San Jacinto Mountains are a lovely area. I didn’t know the Mountain Yellow-legged Frog was around there too. good luck with the release efforts.
It’s great to read about frog conservation efforts as the decline of so many amphibian species is truly alarming. Hope you’ll keep us updated. Thanks very much.