Newark Area Volunteers Needed to Help Frogs

Greater Newark community invited to January 16 training
with Ridge Street School students to locate Atlantic Coast Leopard Frogs

Conserve Wildlife Foundation is excited to extend an invitation to the Greater Newark community to train as citizen scientists and help a newly discovered frog species. 

The Atlantic Coast (AC) Leopard Frog (Lithobates kauffeldi), was discovered in 2012 in Staten Island. This species has since been located in a number of urban and other areas in New Jersey and New York, though its full range is still unknown. Amphibians are among the most vulnerable and rapidly declining wildlife in the world, facing habitat loss, disease and pollution – and the AC leopard frog faces additional threats in our densely populated region.

Conserve Wildlife Foundation invites Newark area residents to join biologist Allegra Mitchell in the Kauffeld’s Calling Frogs Citizen Science Monitoring Project. On January 16 at 3:30 pm, community members are invited to the school to  join a training session on how to locate the AC leopard frog. No experience is required. Training and data collection materials will be provided. 

Sixth-grade students at Ridge Street School in Newark are partnering on this project as well, as they  have been learning about this and other frog species during the school year, thanks to generous funding by the Victoria Foundation and PSEG Foundation. Participants at the January 16 training will learn about this new frog species and its habitat, and practice identifying its unique mating call. Training sessions will also discuss threats to amphibian conservation throughout the state. After training, citizen scientists will go out into the field during the frogs’ mating season in early spring to collect data for a statewide effort to find out where this species lives.

Registration for the training is required. Contact Conserve Wildlife Foundation biologist Allegra Mitchell at allegra.mitchell@conservewildlifenj.org with questions, or to register.

Resources:

• CWF Field Guide entry for the Atlantic Coast Leopard Frog 
• Amphibian Conservation at CWF