ARMI in the news - Recovery: Saving Mark Twain’s Famous Frog

There’s good news about amphibians, and it’s an important antidote for hopelessness.

The main character of Mark Twain’s first literary success, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, was a California red-legged frog whose noted leaping ability was annulled by birdshot surreptitiously forced down its throat.

When The New York Saturday Press ran the story on November 18, 1865 California red-legged frogs were so abundant in and near the state’s coastal areas they provided a booming market for frog legs.

Today the West’s largest native frog is missing from 70 percent of its historic range and listed as federally threatened. Likely causes include an alien amphibian disease called chytrid fungus, development, urban runoff, water loss from diversions, drought and fire from climate change, past predation by humans and current predation by non-native fauna.

But recovery efforts by multiple partners, including The Nature Conservancy, are producing spectacular results.

View full article: https://blog.nature.org/science/2019/11/14/recovery-saving-mark-twains-famous-frog/