Project to help rare frog under way

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. -- The U.S. Forest Service has launched a project to eradicate nonnative trout from seven lakes near Lake Tahoe to help save the rare mountain yellow-legged frog.

Employees have begun setting gillnets at Ralston, Cagwin and Tamarack lakes in the Desolation Wilderness in an effort to remove trout and restore once-friendly frog habitat, the agency's Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit announced.

Over the next decade, the Forest Service plans to remove brook and rainbow trout from Margery, Lucille, LeConte and Jabu lakes in the wilderness area just west of Tahoe, they said.

The lakes were selected because of their proximity to current populations of the frog, a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act.