SAVING THE CHIRICAHUA LEOPARD FROG

When a Chiricahua leopard frog wants attention, it snores — at least, its distinctive call sounds like a snore. But the sound of snoring around desert streams, springs, and even stock tanks is a lot softer than it used to be. Once found in more than 400 aquatic sites in the Southwest, the frog is now found at fewer than 80. In Arizona, the Chiricahua has declined more than any other leopard frog.

Chiricahua leopard frogs need permanent water for reproduction, but that’s increasingly hard to come by: Southwest riparian areas are often destroyed by livestock grazing, groundwater pumping, water diversion, and dams. Some natural marshes, springs, and wetlands are converted to cattle stock ponds. Meanwhile, nonnative predators like bullfrogs, fishes, and crayfish feast on the frog and fungal disease and global forces — from elevated ultraviolet radiation to pesticides to climate change — also take their pound of flesh.

The Center submitted a petition to list the species as federally endangered in 1998, and after two Center lawsuits, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the frog as threatened in 2002. The listing included a special rule essentially exempting the management of stock tanks from Endangered Species Act restrictions — yet ironically, the agency’s strategy to recover the species has relied on the maintenance of these frogs in stock tanks instead of restoration of natural habitats such as springs and streams. The Center became part of the stakeholders’ group that developed a 2007 federal plan to recover the frog, and we advocated for reducing cattle, preserving springs, and removing bullfrogs on several grazing allotments. This frog needs critical habitat, and only restoration of natural streams and wetlands will secure its future. The Center’s Public Lands and Urban Wildlands programs watchdog the activities that are degrading our last desert rivers — including Arizona’s San Pedro River and Fossil Creek.