Baltimore Sun - A new study finds frogs, toads and salamanders disappearing at an alarming rate across the United States.
In what they say is the first analysis of its kind, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and a couple of universities report that declines in environmentally sensitive amphibians are more widespread and more severe than previously thought. Even the most common critters, such as the spring peepers that make Maryland marshes ring with their mating cries, appear to be losing ground.
What's more, they also seem to be vanishing from ponds, streams, wetlands and other supposedly protected habitat in national parks and wildlife refuges.
If the trend continues, the researchers say, some of the rarer amphibians could disappear in as few as six years from roughly half the sites where they're now found, while the more common species could see similar declines in 26 years.
Researchers have known for some time that some frog, toad and salamander species were in trouble, but until now they hadn't developed a broad national picture of how fast they were disappearing.
In what they say is the first analysis of its kind, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and a couple of universities report that declines in environmentally sensitive amphibians are more widespread and more severe than previously thought. Even the most common critters, such as the spring peepers that make Maryland marshes ring with their mating cries, appear to be losing ground.
What's more, they also seem to be vanishing from ponds, streams, wetlands and other supposedly protected habitat in national parks and wildlife refuges.
If the trend continues, the researchers say, some of the rarer amphibians could disappear in as few as six years from roughly half the sites where they're now found, while the more common species could see similar declines in 26 years.
Researchers have known for some time that some frog, toad and salamander species were in trouble, but until now they hadn't developed a broad national picture of how fast they were disappearing.
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