Photo by The Urban Naturalist
I am now a certified frog-watcher -- or rather, listener. A couple of weeks ago, I joined about 20 other volunteers in training for FrogWatch USA, a program by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums that teaches people to identify frogs and toads by their calls and track the information as a way of keeping track of how populations of different species are faring across the country.
I won't go into the details of the program here (you can check out those at www.aza.org/frogwatch/). Suffice to say that when the little amphibians begin calling to each other next spring, I will be listening alongside some pond with data sheet in hand.
I am a big fan of theso-called "citizen science" programs that engage regular people in keeping an eye out on the changes occurring in the natural world on which we all depend.
The oldest such program is the annual Christmas Bird Count by the National Audubon Society. All across the United States during the month of December, groups of birders go out to count the species and numbers of birds in their are and report them to a national database. The organization has been tracking migratory bird populations this way for more than 100 years, providing scientists with comprehensive data that they never could have gathered on their own.
Such data is important because birds and amphibians are often the harbingers of larger changes in our ecosystems.
Amphibians -- critters likes frogs, toads, salamanders and newts -- have highly absorbant skin that makes them highly susceptible to pollutants and disease. When a wetland ecosystem is in trouble, the amphibans are among the first to let us know. And humans need the water storage and cleaning abilities of healthy wetlands as much as they need oxygen. In fact, algae, much of which grows in wetlands, provides most of the oxygen on the planet.
And the absence of baby birds in a nearby nature preserve that had been sprayed to erradicate mosquitoes was noted by Olga Owens Huckins in a 1958 letter to her friend Rachel Carson. Carson, a wetlands biologist, went on to write "Silent Spring," a book that resulted in the banning of DDT and creation of the Clean Water Act, among other laws.
Nerdy as it may sound to count birds or sit silently after dark listening to frogs, it is important scientific work -- work that the average person can do with a little training and some good old-fashioned care about the world that sustains them.
Log onto FrogWatch or contact your local Audubon Society to learn more.
Comments