Passport to Texas

Brown Striped Frog, Image Creative Commons, Brenda Starr

Conservation: The Rules of Frogging Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

[Chorus of frogs]

Have you ever been frogging?

06 — It’s what we call when you just get out at night and you start listening for frogs and see what’s living out there around you.

Lee Ann Linam coordinated Texas Amphibian Watch for Parks and Wildlife. Frogging involves volunteers who collect information on amphibian species they hear.

10 — When we suggest that folks do something kind of unusual like that, we like to give them some guidelines to keep them safe, and to keep the frogs safe, and to respect the rules around them. So, that’s what the rules of frogging are for.

Volunteers must obtain permission before accessing privately owned land. Of utmost importance is the safety of the amphibians.

23 — Amphibians are sensitive to things like insect repellents that contain deet, which many of them do. Things like sunscreen and other chemicals that might be on your hands. And so we always say to people, before handling frogs, make sure that you wash your hands, keep your hands moist. And then the other thing we say is to go ahead and wash up afterwards because some frogs have compounds on their skin that protect them from being eaten.

And those compounds can be irritants. We have a link to the complete rules of frogging at passporttotexas.org.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series… and provides funding for diverse conservation project throughout Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.