Heritage Fund gives head start to leopard frogs

Celebrating 20 years of

conserving Arizona’s wildlife

One of the most beneficial sources of funding for Arizona’s wildlife and outdoor recreationists is the Heritage Fund. Two decades ago, Arizonans overwhelmingly approved the creation of the fund, which, among other things, directs money from lottery ticket sales to the Arizona Game and Fish Department to invest in conservation efforts like educating children about wildlife, acquiring critical wildlife habitats for sensitive species, and protecting and recovering many of the state’s imperiled wildlife.

One sensitive species benefiting from the Heritage Fund is the Chiricahua leopard frog. This medium-sized frog was once abundant throughout the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. It has a green-brown skin color with numerous dark spots on its back, thus its name “leopard frog.”

Reductions in the frogs’ distribution the past few decades prompted their listing as federally threatened in 2002 under the Endangered Species Act. Reasons for declines of wildlife species are not always clear, and several interacting factors are often at play. Biologists generally agree that predation by introduced species, especially crayfish, American bullfrogs and sport fishes, and chytridiomycosis, a fungal skin disease that is killing frogs and toads around the globe, are the leading causes. Other factors have also contributed to their decline, including degradation and loss of wetlands, recent catastrophic wildfires, drought and contaminants.

To address declines of Chiricahua leopard frog populations, a team of state and federal scientists and stakeholders developed a species recovery plan, identifying captive propagation and reintroductions into suitable habitat as one of many activities intended to reach recovery criteria in order to delist them from the endangered species list.

In 2000, Game and Fish personnel, in cooperation with Region I fisheries program staff, converted portions of an old, idled fish hatchery in Pinetop to “head start” and then eventually propagate Chiricahua leopard frogs. Head starting leopard frogs consists of collecting wild-born egg masses, incubating and raising the young in a predator-free environment, then releasing the juveniles or young adults back to the wild.

Since 2000, more than 1,000 frogs have been produced and released into their historic habitats. Department biologists believe the source population for these frogs may have disappeared, so this captive breeding group could represent the last remnants of the only robust White Mountains population.

One of the project tasks consisted of increasing tank sizes from 10 gallons to 1,500 gallons, resulting in higher frog survival and husbandry efficiency. Annual operating costs are minimized by producing feeder crickets on site. Department personnel are also developing a captive frog propagation husbandry manual that describes use of idled fish hatchery facilities for this purpose. Other research being conducted on these captive frogs includes use of spot pattern recognition as a long-term means of identifying individual frogs, and call playback response testing procedures, both aerial and underwater.

Because the department receives no Arizona tax dollars to cover its operating budget, unlike most state agencies, the Heritage Fund is critical to recovering or sustaining Arizona’s unique native wildlife and to managing more than 800 species. The fund’s impact is multiplied through its use as a match for federal dollars. To learn more about the Heritage Fund and wildlife, visit www.azgfd.gov/heritage.