According to environmental scientist Dr. Peter Ritson frogs and other amphibians in Clark County are decreasing in numbers.
Ritson is searching for volunteers to assist the Southwest Washington Amphibian Monitoring Project (SWAMP), which is an all-volunteer program dedicated to empowering community members to assess and preserve the unique ecological resources for the community.
Volunteers will be provided a free training session 1:30-4:30 p.m. on Feb. 19 at the WSU Vancouver campus VLIB 201. In the training, volunteers will learn to identify and count local amphibian eggs, as well as how to survey and monitor the frogs and toads in ponds and streams throughout the county.
The project’s bigger picture involves the trained community of volunteers to search for pond breeding amphibians and their eggs this winter, then reporting their findings to local and state agencies. More specifically, volunteers will be looking for eggs from red-legged and chorus frogs as well as northwestern and long-toed salamanders. Their information goes into a database used by county, state and federal wildlife groups.
“We want to educate Clark County residents about the importance of amphibians and their associated habitats,” said Ritson. “We hope to encourage their protection in several ways: engaging citizens in wildlife protection, providing data essential to species conservation decisions, and increasing public understanding of the importance of wetlands in a rapidly urbanizing region.”
