Rare yellow-legged frogs are returned to drought-hammered San Gabriel Mountains
The yellow-legged frogs have no known predators, but some call in the beetles, who don’t
The yellow-legged frogs are back in the San Gabriel Mountains – a good sign, scientists argue, because of the frogs’ nocturnal habits.
The frogs, which once were scarce in the rugged terrain that straddles Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties, have been making a comeback in the San Gabriel Mountains since 2007, a finding that has been confirmed by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.
This year, more has been found than during the previous two breeding seasons, according to the department, which released the findings Thursday. Last year, officials found just seven of the small frogs.
But experts are now questioning whether the return of the frogs is part of a bigger biological trend or just a random happenstance.
“Every year, it’s just one or two of these frogs that get back,” said Michael Griggs, a biologist who studies amphibians at the University of California, Riverside. “I don’t think it’s going to go away.”
The San Gabriel mountains, one of the seven remaining home ranges of the California yellow-legged frog (Rana canadensis canadensis), are one of the few places in the U.S. where the species still thrives in a forest where the average annual precipitation amounts to a miniscule 1.6 inches. The species once was distributed across the southern half of the U.S., but it was pushed to the northern part over the last century as the climate warmed and humans encroached on its habitat.
The mountains of Los Angeles County offer refuge for the species and other California critters, such as coyotes, whose numbers have declined in recent decades, especially since the 1950s, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. Coyotes are an