Our Environment: “Respect the Wood Frog, Amphibians Have it Rough” By Scott Turner - GoLocalProv

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Sunday, April 14, 2019

Scott Turner, Environmental Columnist

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PHOTO: Brian Gratwicke Follow Lithobates sylvaticus (Woodfrog) Flickr

After being cooped up, we thawed out, heading to Rome Point in North Kingstown to visit some ephemeral amphibians.

Wood frogs are an early spring specialty in the vernal pools of Rome Point. Calls of the amphibians sound like a chorus of quacking ducks.

Vernal pools are springtime-only ponds that provide important homes for certain plants and animals. The pools are short-lived, so there is usually just a small springtime window to catch the calls of wood frogs.

At Rome Point, which is officially called John H. Chafee Nature Preserve, we found a whole lot of quacking going on.

For us, wood frogs are more often heard than seen. But on this visit we used binoculars to spot some of the 3-4 inch-long, green-brown creatures floating at or near the surface of several ponds. We could even discern the black mask-like marking across their eyes.

Since we first walked the main trail at Rome Point in 1996, the path has tripled in width. Indeed, many more folks visit the site after the State of Rhode Island acquired it in 2001.

Rome Point is a premiere seal-watching locale. The mammals arrive in November and depart in April. We walked through the woods to the beach and then north around the cove.

There was little onshore wind to chill us, making the stroll pleasant. The beach was stony, its rear rimmed by tens of thousands of slipper shells, and marked here and there by an orange or silver jungle shell.

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Sky and trees reflected in Rome Point vernal pool PHOTO: Karen Wargo

The funkiest find on this stretch was a small tree adorned with a dozen-or-so whelk shells

Scanning the offshore rocks, we spotted three relatively large seals. They were gray-white in color and stretched-out across the boulders in a way that tipped their tails skyward.

Walking back to the Route 1A parking lot via a side trail, we passed more vernal pools in which wood frogs called.

Wood frogs live primarily in colder climates, hibernating in winter under logs or leaves, where the amphibians actually freeze. Their hearts stop beating and they cease breathing.

To survive, wood frogs produce an internal antifreeze. The amphibians thaw out when the weather warms, and following the first temperate rains of the year, the frogs assemble at ponds to feed, call and mate.

A lot of other wildlife eat wood frogs. Predators may include herons, crows, snakes, raccoons and skunks. Shorebirds, snakes and even large insects eat wood frog tadpoles. 

This spring, a report published in the journal Science, described the “catastrophic and ongoing loss of biodiversity” among amphibians worldwide from infectious disease, caused by the chytrid fungus. In that article, the authors stated that the outbreak represented “the greatest recorded loss of biodiversity attributable to a disease.”

Hence, you could imagine my heartbreak at Rome Point to encounter the occasional unleashed dog splashing along the edges of a vernal pool, plus jam-packed bags of dog waste littering the trailside. Here and there a bag of poop sat in a pool. Posted park rules state, “Dogs must be leashed at all times.”

Remember the bags that we used to fill with ice and plop on our noggins for headache relief? That fueled the image I thought of at Rome Point: Floating wood frogs with poop bags atop their skulls.

We’re better than this. Please respect the wood frog. Amphibians have it rough. 

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Sky and trees reflected in Rome Point vernal pool PHOTO: Karen Wargo

Scott Turner is a Providence-based writer and communications professional. For more than a decade he wrote for the Providence Journal and we welcome him to GoLocalProv.com. 

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