GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – Frogs will soon begin chorusing throughout Wisconsin and the Department of Natural Resources is looking for volunteers to lend their ears for help with two different frog and toad surveys.
Pretty much anyone can take part in the Wisconsin Frog and Toad Survey, which has been around since the early 80’s. DNR Conservation Biologist Andrew Badje says it provides essential tracking information.
“We get the volunteers to help us survey all these different species in the state by listening to their frog calls. Over time, we’ve gotten a really good idea on statewide distribution of these species, but we’ve also been documenting their trends statewide,” Badje told WTAQ News. “We do have a couple of driving routes [in Brown County], but nothing really in the Green Bay area. We have one in Door County. Manitowoc County has two of them. Then southern Marinette County, in the Peshtigo area as well.”
Volunteers can pick three nights in different calling windows to drive around and record the species and abundancy at ten different sites. But there’s also the phenology option.
“People if they have a wetland in their backyard or a nearby park, they can actually just go out there and record frog calls throughout the season on a phenology basis,” Badje said. “That’s as little as going out to a wetland or listening from your back porch for 5 minutes each night or once a week, depending on how frequently you can. That would be an [easier] option for people who are kind of limited on driving and stuff like that.”
Now if you want to take part, but can’t recognize different frogs simply by their sound, that’s what the Internet is for.
“You can learn the frog calls, so you can click on their audio calls and learn about their ecology, biology, statewide distribution, and and all the different trends that volunteers have been documenting over the years,” Badje said.
For more information on the survey, click here.
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