U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Sued Over Foothill Yellow Legged Frog

Summary: The Center for Biological Diversity intends to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for endangered species protection to the foothill yellow-legged frog.

Foothill yellow legged frog (Rana boylii) could be subject of lawsuit filed against U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; date of photo April 2001, location Marin County, California: Pierre Fidenci, CC BY SA 2.5 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

The Center for Biological Diversity advises the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of notice of intent to sue regarding the endangered foothill yellow legged frog, according to an announcement Dec. 23, 2015.

The nonprofit, 625,000-member organization operating from Tucson, Arizona, bases its action upon a perceived lack of federal cooperation in protecting the foothill yellow legged frog (Rana boylii). Jeff Miller, conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, considers officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service slow in providing Endangered Species Act protection. He describes the diminutive, near-threatened, stream-loving amphibians as relegated to less than half of the streams with which they are associated historically in California and Oregon.

Dams, logging, pollution and stream-scouring endanger frogs.

The Endangered Species Act, signed into law Dec. 28, 1973, by 37th U.S. President Richard Nixon, furnishes protection from extinction to critically imperiled species.

The act gives pressing importance to extinction threats that are found to be the “consequence of economic growth and development untampered by adequate concern and conservation.” Two federal agencies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), handle the administration of the environmental act. Jeff Miller indicates that a petition submitted to FWS initiates the service’s procedure of finding negatively or positively, implementing a status review and making a decision.

He judges the wait overly long for a petition submitted in July 2012.

Conservationists know of the brown-, grey-, or red-backed, buff-snouted, 1.5 to 3-inch (38.1 to 76.2-millimeter), rock-clinging, yellow-legged amphibian as an intrepid jumper into fast-moving, low-elevation waters.

Biologists and ecologists list the eco-friendly, population-controlling feeding of the west coast-dwelling foothill yellow-legged frog upon ants, beetles, flies, grasshoppers, hornets, moths, snails and water striders. They mention the frog’s niches in part-shaded, rocky stream habitats near chaparral, forests and woodlands at 98.42- to 3,280.84-feet (30- to 1,000-meter) elevations above sea level. They note the frog’s reduced ranges in streams at least 1 meter (3.28 feet) deep in central and southern California, Oregon and the southern Sierra Nevadas.

Jeff Miller offers Eel, Klamath, Smith and Trinity rivers and Redwood Creek as strongholds.

The information in the Center for Biological Diversity’s petition for protection prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a positive finding in June 2015.

Jeff Miller questions why passage from status review to decision issuance lagged despite additional information submitted in August by the Center concerning rapidly declining frog populations. He reveals that waters from Oregon’s Willamette River basin to California’s San Gabriel River are compromised by climate change, invasive species, off-road vehicles and water diversions. He states that sustainability requires controlled bass, bullfrog and crayfish populations; curtailed damming, flow releases, logging, mining and pesticide-spraying; and restricted cattle-grazing and off-road vehicle travel.

The announcement triggers no official comment from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

foothill yellow-legged frog; photo by Amy Lind, Pacific Southwest Research Station-U.S. Forest Service: Stephanie Worley, "Is the Foothill Yellow-Legged Frog in Hot Water -- Because of Cold Water?", USDA blog Forestry April 28, 2015, Public Domain, via USDA Blog

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Foothill yellow legged frog (Rana boylii) could be subject of lawsuit filed against U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; date of photo April 2001, location Marin County, California: Pierre Fidenci, CC BY SA 2.5 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rana_boylii02.jpg;
©2004 Pierre Fidenci, via CalPhotos @ https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?enlarge=0000+0000+0104+1184; Pierre Fidenci, Fair Use, via CalPhotos 2 https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=134549&one=T

foothill yellow-legged frog; photo by Amy Lind, Pacific Southwest Research Station-U.S. Forest Service: Stephanie Worley, "Is the Foothill Yellow-Legged Frog in Hot Water -- Because of Cold Water?", USDA blog Forestry April 28, 2015, Public Domain, via USDA Blog @ http://blogs.usda.gov/2015/04/28/is-the-foothill-yellow-legged-frog-in-hot-water-because-of-cold-water/

For further information:

Miller, Jeff. 23 December 2015. “Endangered Species Protection Sought for Rare Frog in California, Oregon.” Biological Diversity > News > Press Releases.
Available @ http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/foothill-yellow-legged-frog-12-23-2015.html

Moore, Steven. 23 December 2015. “Endangered Species Act Protection Sought for Rare Frog in California, Oregon.” Times Standard > News > Breaking News.
Available @ http://www.times-standard.com/article/NJ/20151223/NEWS/151229955

National Forest Fdn. @NationalForests. 13 May 2015. "Is the Foothill Yellow-Legged Frog in Hot Water -- Because of Cold Water?" Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/NationalForests/status/598512087871127553