We desperately need a win for the Dusky Gopher Frog!
FROM CNN:
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up a case concerning the United States Fish and Wildlife Services designation of approximately 1,600 privately owned acres in Louisiana as a "critical habitat" for a species known as the dusky gopher frog, despite the fact the species currently exists only in Mississippi.
The case was filed by a lumber company in Louisiana that holds a long-term timber lease on the land that doesn't expire until 2043. Lawyers for the company say the tract of land "concededly contains no dusky gopher frogs and cannot provide habitat for them absent a radical change in the land use because it lacks features necessary for their survival."
They say the service concluded that the designation could cost $34 million in lost development value of the tract.
But the government argued that if the frogs are "translocated to the site" in five ponds that are "in close proximity to each other" that adult frogs could potentially create a "metapopulation."
Collette Adkins of the Center for Biological Diversity, who argued in favor of the government's position in the lower courts, described the species is a warty, dark-colored frog with ridges on the sides of its back and when it is picked up it covers its eyes with its forefeet to protect its face until predators taste its bitter skin secretions.
The frog spends most of its life living underground in burrows created by gopher tortoises.
"The frog experts have made clear that habitat in Louisiana needs to be protected if the frog is going to survive," she said, adding that the frog historically lived in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi but there are currently only about 100 frogs alive in Mississippi due primarily to habitat loss.
The Fifth US Court of Appeals ruled against the landowners, holding that they had not established that the Fish and Wildlife Service interpreted the Endangered Species Act "unreasonably" when it found that the land in Louisiana "was essential for the conservation of the dusky gopher frog."
The case is expected to be argued next term.
BACKGROUND (From Sierra Club Delta Chapter):
The Dusky Gopher Frog's habitat has been decimated as logging, and now fracking, interests, continue to destroy the longleaf pine forests that once stretched across the Florida Parishes in southeast Louisiana. Over 98% of the longleaf pine forests in the U.S. have already been destroyed. This tiny area in St Tammany represents one of the few chances that the Dusky Gopher Frog has for survival.
The Florida Parishes, especially St Tammany, are prime habitat for both the endangered frog and the Federally-listed threatened Gopher Tortoise. It is the only tortoise in the eastern U.S., but the Dusky Gopher Frog has an even more restricted range than the tortoise. The frog's entire known population is about 250 frogs living in two or three ponds in southern Mississippi. It needs the sandy longleaf habitat favored by the tortoises, but in addition it must have temporary, fish-free ponds in which to reproduce. St Tammany has the perfect habitat, and was once prime Dusky Gopher Frog home.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has offered to provide technical assistance and matching grants to private landowners and states that undertake conservation efforts on behalf of Gopher Tortoises. This aids other endangered or threatened species like the frog which often use tortoise burrows for shelter. The Service will work with landowners to develop conservation agreements to help them manage their properties in ways that benefit the subject species. This approach has been rejected by Louisiana landowners after earlier court battles.
From The Nature Conservancy:
The entire population is estimated at less than 250 adults living in two Mississippi ponds.
In 2012, the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) identified the Dusky Gopher Frog, Lithobates sevosus, as one of the top 100 most endangered species in the world. Commonly known as the Mississippi gopher frog, this endangered amphibian was historically found across parts of southwest Alabama, southern Mississippi and southeast Louisiana. Related species of the gopher frog occur more broadly across the Southeast.
Conservancy scientists and their colleagues from ther agencies and organizations are working to save this species by restoring and managing habitat, studying breeding habits, raising tadpoles in tanks to give them a 'head start' before releasing them into the wild, and creating new populations via translocation.
Formerly classified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a subspecies of the gopher frog, the Dusky Gopher Frog has been elevated to full species status.
The species' current range is limited to only three ponds in south Mississippi: Glen's Pond, Mike's Pond and McCoy's Pond. The McCoy's Pond population is known only from a single call.
Found almost exclusively among the upland sandy habitats of the Southeast’s native longleaf pine ecosystem, the Dusky Gopher Frog spends most of its time in stump holes and burrows – often those made by the gopher tortoise, another imperiled species. Breeding adults and tadpoles thrive in shallow, fishless ephemeral and isolated wetlands embedded within the longleaf pine woodlands.
Unfortunately, the Dusky Gopher Frog population has declined significantly due in large part to loss of ephemeral wetlands and native longleaf pine habitat, the decline of gopher tortoises, invasive species, disease, drought conditions and lack of natural and prescribed fire.
Listed as endangered by the State of Mississippi in 1992 and by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2001, biologists estimate the total Dusky Gopher Frog population to be less than 250 mature individuals.
Threats
The primary historic and current threat to the Dusky Gopher Frog is loss of habitat, specifically loss of fishless ephemeral wetlands and native longleaf pine forests. Development, urban sprawl and fire suppression have contributed to the decline of the longleaf pine forest, which once covered some 90 million acres in the South, from Virginia to Texas.
Today, less than 5 percent of old-growth longleaf pine forest remains, causing the Dusky Gopher Frog and other species like the gopher tortoise – which the frog relies on for underground burrows – to drastically decline. Prescribed fire is essential to maintaining open upland habitat important to both of these species, and to the health of open, grassy, relatively treeless ephemeral ponds essential to the breeding cycle of gopher frogs
Characteristics
The Dusky Gopher Frog...
- is a stubby frog with ridges on its back;
- is either uniformly dark or has irregular dorsal spots, while its throat and belly areas tend to be pigmented;
- has prominent warts on its back that secrete a bitter white substance used as a defense mechanism;
- emits a loud, guttural call that sounds like snoring;
- typically lives less than 7 years, achieving biological maturity around 6 to 8 months in males and 24 to 36 months in females;
- usually breed between January and March, but may breed in the fall, if conditions are right;
- young are herbivores and adults are invertivores (feeds on invertebrates).
What The Nature Conservancy Is Doing
A generous donation of 292 acres by M.C. Davis, a devoted conservationist, is helping biologists manage one of the last remaining wild populations of Dusky Gopher Frog.
The property, known as “Mike’s Pond,” was identified as having gopher frogs in 2004. The Conservancy is managing the site through prescribed fire and removal of cogongrass, an invasive plant which threatens native plant communities and animal species, like the gopher frog and gopher tortoise, that depend on them.
In 2004, biologists began transferring tadpoles and young frogs from Glen’s Pond on U.S. Forest Service property in Harrison County to an ephemeral pond on the Conservancy’s 1,700-acre Old Fort Bayou Preserve in Jackson County in an attempt to establish a new population.
This effort continues today. Biologist Josh Cook of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory has since recorded a gopher frog calling at this site, and subsequently, one gopher frog egg mass was identified.
The Conservancy is also rehabilitating other potential gopher frog ponds for future translocation efforts and is assisting the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks with gopher frog restoration efforts on state-owned lands.