Volunteers Needed for Frog and Toad Survey

The Department of Natural Resources is looking for volunteers to lend their ears for the Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey. Wildlife enthusiasts who rely on audio versus visual cues and listen for the anticipated choruses of wood frogs, boreal chorus frogs, and spring peepers are the perfect fit for this citizen-based monitoring project. The Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey is the longest-running citizen science amphibian calling survey in North America. The survey was initiated in 1981 as a response to known and suspected declines in the 1960s and 1970s in numerous Wisconsin frog species, including the northern leopard frog, American bullfrog, pickerel frog and Blanchard’s cricket frog. The project’s goals were to determine the status, distribution and long-term trends of Wisconsin’s 12 frog and toad species. Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey routes available to interested volunteers (open status is indicated by a green icon) can be found on the Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey’s website (wiatri.net/inventory/frogtoadsurvey/). If desired routes are occupied for 2017, interested volunteers can request to be placed on a waiting list for future years as requested routes or counties become available. Volunteers who wish to sign up for an open WFTS route or phenology surveys in 2017 can contact the department’s Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey Coordinator for further information at [email protected].