by Christine Healy, Wildlife Biologist
It’s always fun to learn the collective names for groups of animals. For example, in the amphibian and reptile world, we have an army of frogs; a congress of salamanders; a bale of turtles; and a lounge of lizards. I wonder what quippy term could describe a group of herpetologists- the folks who spend their lives studying the armies, congresses, bales, and lounges? Perhaps… a partnership?
In that case, a partnership of herpetologists from as far south as Virginia all the way up to Maine descended upon Middletown, Connecticut last month. Not to cross some rare species off their life list (though coincidentally, I crossed two off mine), but rather to attend the annual Northeast Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (NEPARC) conference, hosted at Wesleyan University.
NEPARC is one of five subsets of a national group called Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC) that was established in the late 1990s to facilitate the collaboration between herptile professionals and enthusiasts from different backgrounds and sectors. By assembling government officials, academics, breeders, foresters, rehabilitators, museum curators, laboratory scientists, zookeepers, and more, PARC is the most comprehensive conservation effort ever undertaken on behalf of reptiles and amphibians.
With well over 100 people in attendance, the 2023 conference was a great success and the largest NEPARC event to date. The Connecticut planning team selected a theme of “Sharing the Landscape” as a framework to base the meeting agenda around. They kicked off the week with a series of field trips to demonstrate the diversity of reptiles and amphibians that call the state home. By choosing environments surrounding hiking trails, along power lines, and within public hunting areas, these excursions underscored the many and varied ways that humans and wildlife coexist. This idea was carried through the presentations, panel discussions, and poster session and included topics like ethical herping, the illegal turtle trade, amphibian response to global climate change, and even CWF’s own work on whether New Jersey’s wetland buffer regulations are sufficient to protect sensitive species from the impacts of development.
CWF has been partnering with researchers Sally Florio and Allegra Mitchell from NJDEP Division of Watershed Protection and Restoration on this project for two field seasons now, using Pine Barrens treefrogs as a case study. Pine Barrens treefrogs are habitat specialists, requiring pools with pH < 4.5 to successfully breed. The high iron content in the soils of the Pine Barrens renders freshwater wetlands within the region somewhat acidic compared to those in other parts of the state. New Jersey’s protection of the Pinelands contributed to downlisting the species from state endangered to state threatened, however, they are still vulnerable to habitat loss and pollution.
The Division of Watershed Protection and Restoration began pH monitoring at our field site in South Jersey in 2019 and installed water level data loggers and call recorders in 2020, prior to the commencement of a multi-phase housing development project. The presence of breeding Pine Barrens treefrogs in the vicinity justified adherence to a 150-ft buffer between the onsite pools and the development, the strictest requirement under New Jersey’s Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act.
We began our 2023 field season in May with the installation of refugia traps on trees surrounding three breeding ponds. These are made from PVC pipes and provide shelter for treefrogs without entrapping them; frogs can come and go at will. Such structures have proved effective for studying gray treefrogs, a related species that is also native to New Jersey.
We returned to the site on two evenings in June to conduct call monitoring surveys for adult frogs. Though several species utilize the ponds, Pine Barrens treefrogs have a unique call that makes them easy to distinguish. These surveys enabled us to capture 7 individuals that we measured and photographed prior to re-releasing them at their original locations. We were able to determine that all the individuals were new finds, rather than recaptures from 2022. We estimate > 20 individuals were calling on a given night.
Come July, we shifted our focus from adult frogs to tadpoles. Our team intended to monitor the pool daily for three weeks to track maturation and health. Unfortunately, the water level dropped quickly, with few areas deep enough to support tadpoles. We made the decision to end the season early to avoid placing unnecessary stress on the survivors. None of the individuals collected during one week of study were identifiable as Pine Barrens treefrogs. Last summer’s drought also led to early desiccation at the pool, though not quite as early as this year.
We presented our preliminary results during NEPARC’s poster session and hope to continue monitoring this site for years to come. Additionally, we plan to enhance our analysis by acquiring data from control sites to better understand the connection between the trends we are seeing and weather/climate vs. development.
Our team came away from NEPARC with new connections, insights, and ideas on how to be voices for the wildlife that need us most. Amphibians, especially, face higher risk of extinction than the mammals and birds that often take the spotlight. Low rates of funding and news coverage can make things feel a bit bleak at times but learning about the work being conducted by this partnership of herpetologists certainly gives me hope that we can turn the tide for reptiles and amphibians if we can only learn to share the landscape…
Check out our conference poster and be sure to watch our behind-the-scenes footage from the field: https://youtu.be/vCnewnjX1NQ
We’d like to thank Jackson Development Co LLC for generously supporting this work.
Tags: Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, Herpetologists, Herpetology, Jackson Development Co LLC, NEPARC, NEPARC Conference, New Jersey, new jersey wildlife, NJDEP, NJDEP Division of Watershed Protection and Restoration, Northeast Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, Pine Barrens Tree Frog, pinelands