We know that wetlands around the world face big challenges: fragmentation, pollution, conversion, climate change, etc. But we also know that there are ways to combat these issues, and some of those options give us the chance to get directly involved in wetlands conservation. If you are looking for a way to participate, you’ve got […]
Archive for the ‘Amphibians’ Category
Combating the swamp of sadness
Getting the water just right
As I have mentioned in previous posts, wetlands around the world are disappearing, in part because of land use changes and climate change. We should all be concerned about these losses because wetlands provide a number of ecosystem services that benefit us all, services like water filtration, vital wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration (in the peat), […]
Giving frogs a leg up
In some ways, the picture of amphibian survival I’ve painted over the past few weeks is pretty grim: we know that species are disappearing around the world, in some cases faster than we can identify them; we know that disease is playing a role, as well as pollution and a changing climate; and we know […]
Silence (and raspy-ness) will fall
I have to say that frog researchers are doing, and have done, some pretty amazing things to learn more about the big issues facing amphibians and how we can improve their chances. (It would never have occurred to me that you could track frogs.) And their results are helping us better understand not only the […]
A disappearing act
I’ve spent the last few days trying to get a sense of how frogs are faring around the world, and what I found was generally depressing- according the to the first Global Amphibian Assessment which was completed in 2004, at least 43% of amphibian species are in decline worldwide (Ben-Ari 2005). This trend seems to […]
Croaks in the night
Where I am in Louisiana, spring is already in full swing- the tulip trees are blooming, song birds are loudly proclaiming their territories, and spotted salamander egg masses can be found in standing bodies of water. When some friends went looking for amphibians a week ago, they found lots of croaking frogs. Over the last […]