First time to the savethefrogs.com? Take this 5-question survey!
Free Webinar with SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger.
Thursday, June 3, 2010; 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM US Pacific Standard Time
Reserve your Webinar seat here
Two of the world's most unique and endangered frogs are under imminent threat of extinction, as the New Zealand government has plans to remove legal protections from the strongholds of the frogs' last remaining populations. If the government's plans go through, the land will be open to mining, and the critically endangered Archey's Frog (Leiopelma archeyi) frogs will almost certainly go extinct.
Thanks to the 1,275 SAVE THE FROGS! supporters letters that sent in letters to New Zealand's Minister of Economic Development urging him to protect New Zealand's critically endangered frogs!
Learn more about our campaign in this article that appeared in New Zealand's National Business Review.
The critically endangered Archey's Frog above, and threatened Hochstetter's Frog below.
Earlier this year, the California Department of Fish & Game voted to ban the importation of non-native frogs and turtles for food. Unfortunately, a vocal minority of restaurant and supermarket owners successfully lobbied the Fish & Game Commission to reconsider that ruling.
SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger testified at the Commission's May 19th, 2010 "reconsideration" hearing, highlighting the spread of infectious disease and invasive species that inevitably accompany the frog legs trade. Not only did the Commission vote 3-2 to maintain the ban, they also voted to research methods of enforcing the ban and ensuring invasive species do not slip into the state via potential loopholes.
Thanks to the 1,196 SAVE THE FROGS! supporters letters that sent in letters to the Department of Fish & Game over the past 4 days!
Stay tuned for an audio recording of Dr. Kriger's testimony.
Learn more and read Dr. Kriger's letter to the Department of Fish & Game here.
“How long do frogs live? How many types of frogs are there? What’s the difference between a frog and a toad? Why are frogs disappearing worldwide and what can be done to save them?” SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger will answer all these questions and more as he introduces people around the world to The Wild World of Frogs in this edition of the SAVE THE FROGS! Webinar Series. The slideshow presentation features many of Dr. Kriger's photos of amphibians from around the world, and there will be a question and answer session following the presentation. The presentation is suitable for frog lovers of any age.
This Webinar is FREE, but space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat here.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM US Pacific Standard Time
Find out what time that is in your part of the world.
Dr. Phil Bishop of New Zealand's University of Otago will present a very special one-hour webinar entitled "Saving New Zealand's Threatened Frogs". This webinar is FREE and open to anybody. Dr. Bishop will introduce the audience to the amazing life histories of New Zealand's four frog species, and detail the threats they currently face. The slideshow presentation features many of Dr. Bishop's photos of New Zealand's unique amphibian fauna and there will be a question and answer session following the presentation.
A video of this excellent Webinar will be posted on this site very soon!
The 2nd Annual Save The Frogs Day (April 30th, 2010) was the largest day of amphibian education and conservation action in the planet's history. Save The Frogs Day events took place in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, India, Italy, Ireland, Madagascar, Nepal, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the USA. Thanks to all who took part!
The 3rd Annual Save The Frogs Day will be Friday April 29th 2011. Let's make it exponentially larger!
In late March we informed San Francisco's Restaurant Gary Danko about the current amphibian crisis, and asked them to remove the wild-caught Florida Pig Frogs (Rana grylio) from their menus. Last week the restaurant agreed to remove the frog legs from their menu and not to re-order them, and we have confirmed they are no longer selling frog legs. Restaurant Gary Danko is the first restaurant in the world to remove frog legs from its menus for environmental reasons. As the restaurant is extremely well-known and well-respected in the culinary community, we expect many restaurants to follow in their footsteps. As such, this a major victory for SAVE THE FROGS! and for worldwide amphibian conservation efforts. This victory however is only the beginning, and this campaign will not be complete until the ecologically damaging frog legs trade is relegated to the annals of history.
Pig Frog photo courtesy of Alessandro Catenazzi.
Please sign our petition to get the harmful pesticide Atrazine banned! Atrazine is one of the world's most common pesticides: over 80 million pounds of it were used on American crops last year, and it has been in use for 50 years. This harmful pesticide turns male frogs into females at concentrations as low as 2.5 parts per billion. Atrazine causes cancer in laboratory mammals and developmental problems in fish. Atrazine is one of the most commonly detected pesticides in rainwater, groundwater and tapwater in the USA. Atrazine spray gets lifted into the clouds, travels hundreds of miles and then falls down from the sky in rainwater: half a million pounds of it each year.
Frogs and humans share half our DNA, so Atrazine can't be good for humans either. That's likely why the European Union banned the harmful pesticide in 2004. But the company that produces it, Syngenta (based in Switzerland!) has $11 billion in revenues, and has a huge lobby to keep Atrazine on the market in the USA.
Our goal is to get Atrazine banned by the 3rd Annual Save The Frogs Day (April 29th, 2011)! Please sign the petition right now! We'll be sending it to Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
But that's not all we're going to do...
Please join us in Washington, D.C. on Sunday October 24th 2010 on the International Day of Pesticide Action, an event we conceived and will coordinate with nonprofit partners around the world. We are sure that with your participation, we can rally 100,000 people to march through the streets of DC from the steps of the Capitol to the Environmental Protection Agency demanding a federal ban on Atrazine, the 21st Century's DDT. More info on the International Day of Pesticide Action is to come! We'll see you in Washington, D.C. on October 24th!
Please download Your Official Guide to Save The Frogs Day 2010, and forward it on to all your friends! This guide was published as our April 2010 Members Newsletter. If you enjoy reading it, please support our worldwide amphibian conservation efforts by becoming an Official Member of SAVE THE FROGS! -- all members get a free 12-month subscription to the newsletter! Thanks to SAVE THE FROGS! Volunteer Barbara Flaherty for her invaluable graphic design assistance!
SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger will be on Martha Stewart Living Radio (Sirius 112/XM 157) this Save The Frogs Day (Friday April 30th) at 4:30pm US Eastern Time (1:30 PST). Maggie Mistal, host of “Making a Living with Maggie" will interview Dr. Kriger about ways to focus one's career on a cause or passion. Maggie is a career coach whom CNN has called one of the nation's best known career coaches.
We would like to thank Mayor Mike Rotkin of Santa Cruz, California for legally recognizing the 2nd Annual Save The Frogs Day (April 30th, 2010). Mayor Rotkin joined SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger on the morning of Save The Frogs Day as Dr. Kriger introduced a local elementary school’s students to the Wild World of Frogs. The Mayor helped Dr. Kriger and the kids recreate the night-time sounds of the Australian rainforest. You can click on the image below to get an 8.5x11" PDF of the proclamation. Feel free to post one in your school or office!
To raise awareness of the threats amphibians face, we have compiled a list of the top ten most threatened frogs in the USA, complete with details facts on the frogs' natural history and the threats each species faces. This article was a collaborative project of SAVE THE FROGS!, our Save The Frogs Day Partner the National Wildlife Federation, and a network of amphibian biologists across the United States, including Steven Whitfield, Nina D’Amore, Frank Santana, Amy Yahnke, Marc Hayes, Brian Hobbs, Sarah Kupferberg, Ryan Peek, Greg Ruthig, Kellie Whittaker, Vance Vredenburg, Aaron Ambos and myself. Enjoy the read, and please forward the link to your friends and colleagues!
Frog populations have been declining worldwide at unprecedented rates, and nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Up to 200 species have completely disappeared since 1980, and this is NOT normal: amphibians naturally go extinct at a rate of only about one species every 250 years!!!
Frog populations are faced with an onslaught of environmental problems, including pollution, infectious diseases, habitat loss,
invasive species, climate change, and over-harvesting for the pet and food trades. Unless these problems are remedied, amphibian species will continue to disappear, resulting in irreversible consequences to the planet’s ecosystems and to humans.
SAVE THE FROGS! is America's first and only public charity dedicated exclusively to amphibian conservation. Our mission is to protect amphibian populations and to promote a society that respects and appreciates nature and wildlife.
Founded in May 2008, we have several active educational programs, including (1) teaching a free laboratory course on chytrid detection techniques to Latin American amphibian biologists; (2) coordinating the annual Save The Frogs Day, the largest day of amphibian education and conservation action in the planet's history; (3) providing free educational materials to teachers and scientists via www.savethefrogs.com and its Portuguese counterpart www.salvemossapos.com; (4) giving presentations on amphibian extinctions in multiple languages to schools, universities, zoos, museums, businesses, and community groups; (5) creating public service announcements that have been posted in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and in five major U.S. airports; (6) providing an annual $500 travel grant for a student to present their research results at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists; (7) the SAVE THE FROGS! Webinar Series, which features guest presentations from amphibian biologists around the world.
SAVE THE FROGS! also has active advocacy campaigns, such as working with restaurants to discontinue frog leg sales, campaigning for the removal of invasive trout from critical Yellow-Legged Frog habitat, and ensuring that the threatened California Tiger Salamanders receive adequate legal protections. We have accomplished all of the above on less than $75,000 and in less than two years.
View a list of our 2009 accomplishements here.
As funds permit, we will purchase land in America and abroad; lobby for mandatory disease testing on imported amphibians and for laws limiting the use of harmful pesticides; provide full Ph.D. scholarships; get frog dissections out of all United States secondary schools; and take on an array of other urgently needed conservation actions.
Our vision is a world in which not a single amphibian species is threatened with extinction. With your involvement and your financial support, we are 100% positive we can SAVE THE FROGS!
Please sign up for our free electronic newsletter so we can keep you up to date on all of our initiatives and accomplishments.
The frogs are the answer,
The key to turn the lock,
The cure to many diseases,
But they are almost gone,
What will you do?
--Brittany Belanger, Age 12,
Winner of the 1st Annual Frog Poetry Contest.
Enjoy the website, and please spread the word!
Website design, photos & content by Kerry Kriger unless otherwise noted.
Copyright © 2008-2009 SAVE THE FROGS!TM All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use
SAVE THE FROGS! is a registered trademark.
