One Student's Experience with the 

MARA Project!

Gabriella F. from Ms. Coggeshall's class at Calvert Middle School made some interesting observations from her home (Prince Frederick SW).  She shares some of her observations below:

I was doing my homework when my dad called me outside from the garage. He told me to come quiet and slow, and naturally, my first though was “my puppy got his head stuck in the porch railings again!” So I walked out and up to my dad.  “What is-” I started to ask, but he cut me off, put his finger to his face and pointed to what I thought was a rock on the side of our front porch. “You really brought me out here to show me a rock?” I asked quizzically. “But” I thought, “at least I don’t have to get my puppy’s head out of the railings!” “NO!” He said defiantly. “Go look.” I walked over and saw this little guy! This is a Cope’s Gray Treefrog. Cope’s Gray Treefrogs have a high trilled call and toepads that act as suction cups and allow them to climb and grip objects. This is a great adaption due to the fact that they like to hang around in trees. As you can see, this little guy was using the toepads to its advantage. That advantage was getting away from the camera!

This is another Cope’s Gray Treefrog that was found in my pool filter. After taking him out of the water and making sure he was alright, we placed him back where he belongs!

This is a Black Rat Snake. They are not poisonous to humans, but if provoked, man do they bite! We found him under our porch, but where afraid my puppy would eat him, so we put him in this bucket so we could put him back into the woods.

This is an Eastern Fence Lizard. My younger brother found this little guy and put him in an open container so that he could look at him for a few minutes, and, don’t worry! We put him back.                  

When I went to listen for frog calls on last Tuesday or 5/22/12, I heard the low ‘rum’ sounds of some bullfrogs and my little Cope’s Gray Treefrogs buddies were trilling out too!

  All right! So here are some questions!

Why are amphibians & reptiles so important?

                One of the biggest jobs of amphibians and reptiles is acting as one of the first indicators to bad air, and bad water. Frogs live in water and we drink water. So when there seems to be a problem with the water, which we can see because of frogs dying off due to water cleanliness and salinity, it shows that the water is not safe for us to drink. Also frogs, as tadpoles, eat algae, which clear the water and allow the sunlight to filter through the water and then the underwater plants are able to get sun. This last job isn’t as important to the environment as it is to us. Frogs eat insects such as mosquitoes and flies. This leads to a nice even amount of pesky insects and leaves the summer days less ‘buggy’.

Why are amphibians disappearing?

 Well, with this, the reasons make us look like pretty bad predators. We are destroying their habitats by bulldozing ‘their’ land to build homes and other establishments. Not only does bulldozing take away their land, but it also is another cause off run off and pollution in the water. Non-native species can also be a big problem. They take the native species land, food, and other needed resources. People hunt and kill frogs, not as much here as other countries though. Illnesses are one other huge impact. Chytrid is one of the worst amphibian skin infections, it kills many and fast.

What actions can we do to help these species?

 We can participate in programs such as MARA to locate frog species, where they live, and try to protect them from harm.  When frog species, especially endangered ones, are located and found in their most desirable place to live, we are able to protect the area from harms such bulldozing, water pollution, and from hunters. We can also use less air harmful pesticides and outdoor sprays. They pollute the air that both we and the frogs breathe. But frogs can’t take all of that harmful air and they get sick and die. One other thing is to not release exotic amphibian pets into the wild.  This causes problems with non-native species, especially invasive ones. Non-native species will come and possibly overtake the native populations. This will lead to less space, food, and water for the native species and more competition between the native and non-native populations.