Passport to Texas

An American Bullfrog just minding his own business.

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This is Passport to Texas

Texas Amphibian Watch is a statewide volunteer program in which citizen scientists monitor frogs and toads to help prevent the extinction of species currently in decline. Here are some ways you can help:

There are different levels of monitoring. The easiest of which is whenever you see an amphibian, you write down the time of day, the weather, the rough location, and then once a year you send that in to Parks and Wildlife and they’ll add that into one database.

Scott Kiester is a Texas Amphibian Watch volunteer.

There’s a program called ‘Adopt a [Frog] Pond,’ where you agree to go and listen and record the species you hear at a specific location. [start sfx] Once a month, sometimes more often than that, I’ll take 15 minutes and go out in the evening and listen to who’s out in the neighborhood croaking away. Frogs are a lot more active and do a lot more calling in that period of time after a rain, particularly if you can do it the day after a rain or if you get a rain in the afternoon go out and do it that evening. They just croak away.

Hop over to the calendar section of the Texas Parks & Wildlife website where you can find upcoming Amphibian Watch workshops.

That’s our show… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti