Dave Steen's Cool Blog

How have I missed this one? Dave Steen, an Auburn Ph.D. candidate, has started a fantastic blog over at Living Alongside Wildlife. It's a series of essays on wildlife (mostly herps) that are also appearing in some local newspapers. Dave says,

My goals for this blog are to A) help others appreciate and better know wildlife species that tend to have a bad reputation and B) make my research accessible to a general audience.

He's had it running since last month, but I just discovered it this morning. Whoever reads this should definitely check it out. I thoroughly enjoyed the siren-hunting adventure at what must be the legendary (among Alabama herpetologists) Hutto Pond. I'm in a motel in the Tennessee Valley this morning and have no time to read more, but what I've seen is impressive. Looking forward to reading the whole thing, and to future posts.

Great job, Dave!

Vanishing Frogs

Gopher Frog, Escambia County, Alabama

Last night's PBS Nature film, Frogs: The Thin Green Line by Allison Argo (she directs as well as narrates) was stunning, both in cinematography and content. The segment on Karen Lips' research on total frog extirpation in portions of Panama was especially chilling, as the same chytrid fungus may already be having some effect in our region as well. There's a great segment on reintroducing gopher frogs to a Nature Conservancy preserve in Georgia, and my friend John Jensen is featured, along with others. Last September the filmmaker and I had planned to meet at a former gopher frog breeding site in Shelby County, Alabama to show how development has hit frogs hard in some areas, but our schedules didn't work out. After last night's program, it was comforting to raise the window and hear a 6-species chorus of Barking Treefrogs, Green Treefrogs, Gray Treefrogs, Northern Cricket Frogs, Spring Peepers, and Bronze Frogs. If you missed it, you can watch the entire program here.