Citizen Science in Your Neighborhood: Project Frogwatch

Over the years, spring voices have gradually fallen silent as frogs and other amphibians declined or became extinct. Since amphibians are often clues to the local water quality, ensuring their survival will ensure our own health and survival and provide us with a "health scorecard" for our water resources and wetlands.

The problem is that amphibians aren't considered that cute and sexy. We know the number of tigers left in the wild -- but nobody's sure how many Pacific tree frogs there are. Now, the United States Geological Service is calling for interested volunteers to help them find out about the state of the amphibian nation. The USGS is the nation's largest water, earth and biological science and civilian mapping agency, and one of the nation's best training arenas for "citizen scientists." It works with individuals and organizations across the country to provide reliable, impartial, scientific information on our resources. The information from this research helps USGS scientists to monitor the nation's natural resources, and develop plans to conserve and protect these wild areas.

Project Frogwatch is simple to join. All you need to do is pick an area that you'd like to survey, learn to identify the local species, and visit that area a few times a week for several weeks to make a frog count. The Project Frogwatch has an excellent website, with good field guides on how to spot these critters -- and even some links to places where you can listen to the sounds of frogs and toads (so you can count by listening instead of tromping through muddy areas and waving your flashlight around like a lighthouse set adrift on the lawn.)

And what if you can't do it several times? No problem -- Project Frogwatch will take whatever data you collect. The only data for my area, for instance, is a single evening's report from one citizen -- and yet that bare bones information is valuable enough to keep.

Last year Frogwatch had volunteers from 47 states helping to identify frog populations in their area. The information they gathered is displayed on the Frogwatch USA Web site. But they need more information this year and more volunteers to help with the frog counts.

If you're one of the lucky ones who has a pond or other large water feature on your land, please take some time to report on the ambhibians living there. If you, like so many of us, have a yard that's too small or too buried in a maze of concrete streets to turn into amphibian habitat, then make your evening walks a thing of purpose -- get some exercise and get to know a few local

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