Rainy nights in Georgia give rare frogs a leg-up on life

Handful of Gopher frogs. Photo Dirk J. Stevenson

You’ve probably never seen one, but Gopher frogs are . . . cute. They’re round and stubby, dark in color (a grey-brown green) with big eyes and lots of decorative spots, dashes and speckles. In some ways they’re almost toad-like. They also have a distinctive ‘snoring’ song, which you can hear by opening this page and clicking on the frog.

The Gopher frog (Rana capito), a form of crawfish frog, is a very rare, very appealing mid-sized frog found in the coastal plains of Georgia and North Carolina.

Just how rare they are has been difficult to determine, due to their secretive lifestyle (sharing the burrows of another gravely endangered species the Gopher Tortoise), but since amphibians are in jeopardy across the globe, it seems reasonable to protect every species we can. The Mississippi Gopher frog is now a federally protected species. 

Researchers released about 250 gopher frog metamorphs in a seasonal pond at The Nature Conservancy’s Williams Bluffs Nature Preserve near Blakely last week, according to a July 6 press release from the Georgia Department of Natural Resouces. Another 800 will soon be added, part of a five-year project to establish populations of the frogs rated a high priority in Georgia’s Wildlife Action Plan.

The total will dwarf previous years when no more than 250 metamorphs and tadpoles were released, according to senior wildlife biologist John Jensen with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

The Williams Bluffs frog release has been helped by 2009’s unusually rainy spring. Jensen said the water level of the release pond - where the frogs will hopefully return to breed - is the highest he has seen. In 2007, the project’s first year, drought dried up the pond. Researches improvised by using a carefully placed cattle trough.

The recent release was the study’s earliest.

Gopher frogs have been documented at fewer than 10 sites in Georgia and are state-listed as rare. Across their six-state range, 97 percent of their habitat has been lost. The stubby, nocturnal frogs spend most of their lives in gopher tortoise burrows and are found almost exclusively in the Coastal Plain’s longleaf pine ecosystem.

Gopher tortoise at burrow. Photo: John Jenson, Ga. DNR

Legged gopher frog tadpoles and metamorphs released at Williams Bluffs are marked, in part by injecting a fluorescent elastomer, or rubber, dye under their skin. Metamorph is the stage in which frogs develop lungs and legs and no longer need the water. Biologists will survey the pond in a few years for adult frogs and egg masses to gauge the project’s success.

A PBS Nature documentary “Frogs: The Thin Green Line” included the study in an otherwise troubling look at problems decimating frog populations worldwide.

Still from the film "Frogs: The Thin Green Line." Courtesy Ga. DNR.

Conservation of gopher frogs and other nongame wildlife is supported by sales of Georgia’s bald eagle and hummingbird license plates and donations to the Give Wildlife a Chance state income tax checkoff.

The Georgia Wildlife Action Plan is a comprehensive strategy that guides Wildlife Resources and Georgia Department of Natural Resources efforts to conserve biological diversity.

Project partners including Atlanta Botanical Garden, The Nature Conservancy, the University of Georgia and Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center are learning more about rearing the frogs. “I’m comfortable we’re raising enough to make it work,” said Jensen, who works with the Nongame Conservation Section in DNR’s Wildlife Resources Division.

Thank you to Melissa Cummings and Rick Lavender of the GA DNR for furnishing this information to me.

For more information:

GA Department of Natural Resources

About the herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians) of the southeast US,

Frogs and Toads of South Carolina and Georgia

Reptiles and Amphibians of South Carolina and Georgia

How Rare is the Gopher Frog?