Relict leopard frog: One pond does not a failure make

The relict leopard frog’s journey into Southern Nevada’s landscape has seen its share of challenges.

Clark County and the Nevada Department of Wildlife spent about five years trying to get the rare frog to thrive at a pond along the Muddy River. But nearly 2,000 frogs later, the county scuttled an agreement Feb. 3 with state wildlife officials after multiple failed efforts. It’s likely now that no frogs live at the pond, county officials say.

In a way, frogs and other amphibians are a barometer of an area’s overall environmental health. Their moist skin doesn’t take kindly to environmental hazards in the air. Nor will frogs survive if water, the lifeblood of their natural environment, disappears.

The relict leopard frog’s plight isn’t unusual in the amphibian world. Amphibians throughout the U.S. and worldwide are in decline, according to a 2013 federal report.

But don’t count out this particular frog just yet. Officials aren’t giving up on the tiny 2-inch frog, believed to be extinct in the 1950s.

The county hasn’t put all of its frogs in one pond.

The frog was introduced at 14 experimental sites in Southern Nevada and just across the Arizona border. They stretch from south of Lake Mohave to along the Muddy River in the Moapa Valley south of Mesquite. Four of the locations, including Perkins Pond along the Muddy, haven’t worked out for one reason or another. The other 10 sites are still moving forward, populated with frogs in springs and ponds.

The county has spent about $1 million since 2007 toward frog preservation efforts at the 14 sites, including the pond, county records show.

No property or sales tax revenue from the county’s general fund went toward that effort. Instead, the county uses developer fees. Developers pay $550 an acre when obtaining a grading permit from the county. Under the county’s multiple species habitat conservation plan, the fees go toward projects that offset the impact of the new development on 78 protected plants and species, including the frog.

A FROG POND FAILS

The county and the Wildlife Department entered into an agreement in 2010 with the goal of populating Perkins Pond with the relict leopard frog.

The agencies, and others such as the National Park Service and the state of Arizona, have worked under a plan that started in 2005. The ultimate goals of the voluntary plan are to keep the frog from becoming listed as endangered and get it to a point where it’s under routine management instead of intense management.

Jef Jaeger, assistant professor in residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, works with the county and the Nevada Department of Wildlife at the sites. Students were brought in to do frog counts and surveys. In Jaeger’s view, continuing to keep the frog off the endangered species list would be a success because a listing would mean that the frog population isn’t thriving as it should.

“In my mind, becoming endangered is a failure of management and not a success,” he said. “Unfortunately, a lot of the public perceives a listing of the species as providing these protections, but really what it’s telling you is we have failed at what we’re supposed to do.”

Frog work isn’t for the fainthearted. Frog counts require the stamina to venture into rocky canyons at night, armed with spotlights and watching out for rattlesnakes.

Efforts abounded at the manmade pond: Fencing was put up to keep predatory bullfrogs out. Nearly 2,000 tadpoles and young frogs were released into the pond. But surveys found that only about one or two frogs were surviving each winter.

Storms hurt the effort, too. Flooding in 2014 damaged the irrigation ditch feeding into the pond, cutting off the source of water.

Officials point to successes beyond Perkins Pond. With 14 sites attempted, just four haven’t worked out.

The other 10 sites include natural springs and other existing places that are naturally suitable for the frogs.

“I think the fact that they persist out there in the landscape is in some measure success because we’re constantly making progress, and the good news is they aren’t extinct and they’re not going extinct,” said Jon Sjoberg, chief of fisheries for the Wildlife Department.

Ross Haley, a wildlife biologist at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, said the availability of water can be a challenge for sites. In a year with plentiful water, a location with a spring looks like it would support frogs, only to later dry up.

Tadpoles are raised in a lab at Lake Mead until they become young adults. Then they are put into springs.

Perkins Pond is an example of why the frog population is spread out.

“You don’t want all your eggs in one basket, and you don’t want all your adults in one basket either,” Haley said.

For those who think all frogs are created equally, Haley offers this: The relict leopard frog’s genetic makeup compared to the lowland leopard frog is vastly different, despite its similar appearance.

“To put it in perspective, they are more different from each other than we are from chimpanzees,” he said of different frog types.

Marci Henson, assistant director of Clark County comprehensive planning, said the successes elsewhere throughout the region are an encouraging sign.

“It’s experimental, and with any experiment you hope for the best,” she said.

The pond and surrounding land will be used for riparian habitat work under the county’s plan, she said.

FROG HISTORY

The frog’s western roots run deep.

The relict leopard frog entered documented amphibian history in the 1870s. A specimen was collected in 1872 in nearby Utah and declared a new species three years later.

Their range stretched down the Virgin River into small springs.

As the West was settled, the frog’s presence diminished. Newcomers introduced the American bullfrog and crayfish into ponds and streams. Those new predators dealt a blow to the frog.

“That was generally the kiss of death,” Haley said.

Wetland areas were drained for pastureland, reducing the frog habitat needed for survival.

By the 1950s, the frog was believed to be extinct. That changed, though, when the species was discovered anew at Lake Mead in 1991. Interest grew in the following years, and the voluntary agreement to promote the frog was reached in 2005, with involvement from the U.S. Department of Fish &Wildlife, local agencies and state agencies in Nevada and Arizona.

As for the frog’s future, that remains to be seen.

“If it ever got to the point that there were so many relict frogs that kids could go out and grab them and put them in their fish tanks at home, I would be ecstatic,” Jaeger said.

Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-405-9781. Find him on Twitter: @BenBotkin1.