By Carmen Taylor, Bay Nature
The classic “ribbit” that Hollywood used for decades for nighttime frog noises comes from a diminutive, 2-inch West Coast native called the Pacific chorus frog. If you are in San Francisco and want to hear them, though, you are mostly restricted to the movies these days: The city’s expansion in the 20th century filled in the vernal pools of the Mission District where the frogs once thrived, pushing the frogs to the brink of disappearance from the city.
Chorus frogs are not a species of particular concern elsewhere. There will be no federal effort to restore them and protect their habitat in San Francisco. But as late as the 1900s, they were common there, and for Nature in the City, that is reason enough to try to bring them back. And there hangs an interesting story.
Read the complete story at Bay Nature.
