Frank Santana, a research technician with the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, prepares to make the first-ever release of endangered mountain yellow-legged frog tadpoles into a mountain stream. They are among 36 of the Southern California population of mountain yellow-legged frogs reintroduced into a stream near Idyllwild, Calif., Tuesday. There are believed to be less than 200 of the frogs living in the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains. Photo: CourtesyThe restoration of the Hill’s mountain yellow-legged frog population is continuing although no new releases of eggs are planned for 2012, according to Adam R. Backlin, ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center in Irvine.
“It looks like our captive breeding program this year did not produce as many new frogs as we had hoped. So we will not be releasing any frogs in 2012,” Backlin wrote in an email last week. “Instead we will be head starting the 200 to 300 new frogs to an older life stage in captivity and releasing them in 2013 as juvenile frogs.”
The team continues to monitor frog releases from 2011 and did detect tadpoles in the creek as recently as February 2012, he added.
They are hoping some of tadpoles released in 2011 will have survived this winter and metamorphose into frogs this summer.
Hill businesses and institutions that will be closed Friday, Jan. 1, to observe New Year’s Day are: • Area post offices • BBVA Compass Bank • Fern Creek Medical Center (closes noon Thursday) • Fern Valley Water District (also Thursday) • Hemet Unified School District (also Thursday) • Idyllwild Health Center (closes noon Thursday) •…
Rechelle Andrews, 40 of Hemet, lost control of her 2006 Yamaha motorcycle Sunday on Highway 243 near Marion View Drive and clipped the back of an oncoming car. Andrews complained of pain and was transported by the Idyllwild Fire Medic Unit to a Mercy Air ambulance and onto Desert Regional Medical Center. No one…
The William M. Lowman Concert Hall, an architectural and acoustical jewel gracing the Idyllwild Arts campus, was formally dedicated on Saturday, Sept. 24, with a gala alumni classical concert and reception. Although an alumni jazz concert was the first held in Lowman, on March 5 of this year, the formal inauguration had always been scheduled…
Sheriff’s log The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Hemet Station responded to the following calls Sunday to Saturday, Jan. 21 to 27. Idyllwild • Jan. 21 — Alarm call, 6:14 p.m., Pine Crest Ave. Handled by deputy. • Jan. 22 — Harrassing phone calls, 1:40 p.m., address withheld. Handled by deputy. • Jan. 22 — Follow-up,…
Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jointly published a proposed change to their regulations for implementing the Endangered Species Act. They are proposing to limit the definition of “taking” a threatened or endangered species to the language in the original law. Section 3(19) reads, “The term…
