BillMcGighan wrote:Okay, Jonathan,
That article is first class.
Without knowing exactly where you were, you took us along and succinctly explained the plight of the two primary amphibs.
Thanks Bill!
Yeah, I could have gotten even more detailed, but as you likely perceived there were details omitted for the sake of maintaining the confidentiality of the locales. If you know where to find them then you (probably) will know where I was, if you don't, then you won't. It's not really a big issue as most of the audience is well outside of California and awareness that leads to change is far more important than constantly worrying about the few bad apples, but I didn't want to be the cause of any bad contacts.
BillMcGighan wrote:I know euthanizing individual invasives is futile and probably only makes a conservationist feel righteous, but do you guys nail those Bullfrogs when you see them?
Here in the east I still terminate (with Benzocaine) Cuban Tree Frogs in central and northern Florida, but I know it's futile.
I feel a bit uncomfortable killing things that I'm not going to eat (and yes, you can eat bullfrogs but I haven't had the time on these trips), and as you say it's probably futile. That being said, if a bullfrog is dumb enough to let me sneak up on it then it is dispatched. I can confirm that one bullfrog died in the making of that post.
I'm a bit more aggressive when I'm in a place where I think the population is limited or isolated, and my killing might do some good. A few months ago I was in a tiny creek and was disappointed that I couldn't find any salamanders but was seeing invasive crayfish. As it was a small side creek, I went through and dispatched every crayfish I saw, in the hopes that the salamander population was still present but was just being kept tamped down by the crayfish, and maybe I could shift the balance a little.
BillMcGighan wrote:Final thought:
There are still frogs in Southern California. The two chorus frog species that provide a soundtrack for many a Hollywood movie, Pseudacris cadaverina and Pseudacris hypochondriaca, have maintained much of their historic range and even persist in some city parks.
I chuckled at this because I can never ignore movie background soundtracks with tree frogs. Some are outrageously funny, usually Peepers or Gray Tree Frogs here in the east.
The classic is the 1956 horror move, "THEM". The sound these irradiated giant ants made when they were near was that of a Bird-voiced Tree Frog (
Hyla avivoca)

Yeah, because Hollywood is in our backyard, I think more of those soundtracks have
Pseudacris hypochondriaca than anything else. It's neat when you get variety, but through the magic of Hollywood you can hear
Pseudacris hypochondriaca calling from locations all over the world!