Long Beach’s aquarium has a plan to save frog on the brink of extinction
Inside three water tanks in a tucked-away room at the Aquarium of the Pacific, biologists are tasked with bringing back a population of frogs that once thrived throughout the state's mountainous streams but has since reached the brink of extinction.
Inside three water tanks in a tucked-away room at the Aquarium of the Pacific, biologists are tasked with bringing back a population of frogs that once thrived throughout the state's mountainous streams but has since reached the brink of extinction.
What happened
It's a program that's almost closed out its fifth year with a major milestone: more than 1, 000 frogs raised and issued into the wild.
That's more than five times as plenty of mountain yellow-legged frogs – named for the lemon-hued streak along their hind legs – believed to be in the wild when last recorded in 2019, reduced to small pockets of wild streams in the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains. By the time the frog was listed under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2002, fewer than 100 adults remained in Southern California. Though biologists say that figure has almost certainly shifted since, a count in 2020 put the number at regarding 188 in the wild.
The bottom line
Taken together, the developments around long Beach's aquarium has a plan to save frog on the brink point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.
