Scientist: Frog's decline threatens Sierra ecology

Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
User avatar
SteveB
Founding Member
Posts: 228
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 10:08 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Reno, NV

Post by SteveB »

Very interesting thread! GiantBrookie, is the database you referred to re: surveyed lakes in the Sierra online? Given some information seen here it would be interesting to examine the raw data from these surveys. Were regular Sierra fishermen (odd phrase, given that they're casual LAKE anglers) chatted up for their opinions on the matter? I imagine there's a difference of opinion, but comparing the info would be very interesting!
User avatar
giantbrookie
Founding Member & Forums Moderator
Founding Member & Forums Moderator
Posts: 3578
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:22 am
Experience: N/A
Location: Fresno
Contact:

Post by giantbrookie »

SteveB wrote:Very interesting thread! GiantBrookie, is the database you referred to re: surveyed lakes in the Sierra online? Given some information seen here it would be interesting to examine the raw data from these surveys. Were regular Sierra fishermen (odd phrase, given that they're casual LAKE anglers) chatted up for their opinions on the matter? I imagine there's a difference of opinion, but comparing the info would be very interesting!
I don't believe the entire database is online, although it may be through the various journals that it has been published in (one problem here is most online journal subscriptions are not available to the general public and are either a part of paid subscriptions or from libraries that pay for bundled subscriptions to multiple journals). I've been fortunate enough to be in touch with various folks involved in these studies, and it probably helped that I had provided some of my own observations to researchers in the days before they had sampled every lake in their systematic campaigns. In any case, there are several lead researchers on frog and fish distributions mentioned in GDurkee's posts and you may be able to track down for a look at their data. I believe they would be happy to let you see it because I think making the data more accessible will be to their (and everyone's) benefit.
Since my fishing (etc.) website is still down, you can be distracted by geology stuff at: http://www.fresnostate.edu/csm/ees/facu ... ayshi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
User avatar
burtonfm
Topix Acquainted
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2005 9:45 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: El Dorado Hills
Contact:

Post by burtonfm »

This is a great thread and I'm learning quite a bit about the yellow legged frog. But, I do want to stand up for Caddis's entry because I had a similar opinion of the original post.

It appears we are all data driven people who form opinions based on our intepretation of facts and data. Great. I'm all for data and making statements that can be backed up by data. But, as I was reading the article in the original post, I was fine until the last few paragraphs. In particular, the quote: "I suspect that climate change is involved in general in these enigmatic declines" left me thinking Pounds was guessing. He didn't say "empirical data has shown" or "the consensus of the scientific community is"... he said "I suspect". To me, that's the equivalent of "I'm guessing that..." or "I really can't prove it, but I think...".

In the very next quote, he goes on to link the burning of fossil fuels to global warming and the emergence of the fungus, thus making a big leap in conclusions based on "suspect" logic. The article was about how fungus is impacting frogs, not an editorial on a personal opinion saying we are killing frogs all over the world as we drive our cars home tonight. In my opinion, Pounds's last few quotes cheapened the article and distracted the reader from the topic at hand. The article was about how frogs are disappearing from the Sierras, not a debate on fossil fuels. I can see why Caddis reached the opinion he did.

BTW, I found several well writen papers on the web that do a good job of disputing Pounds's assumption that the chytrid fungus is due to global warming. Bottom line... I'm not a scientist, so I'll let them fight it out and then I'll make up my mind.

I do love the Sierra's, and am all for restoring them to their natural state. I'm an avid fisherman, but have no problem supporting the frog restoration efforts, and now that I'm more aware of the problem (thank you everyone for the informative posts), I'll be watching for ways to help. I promise to catch as many fish as I can and eat them :>.
User avatar
giantbrookie
Founding Member & Forums Moderator
Founding Member & Forums Moderator
Posts: 3578
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:22 am
Experience: N/A
Location: Fresno
Contact:

Re: Ribbet, ribbet

Post by giantbrookie »

gdurkee wrote:Speaking only of the National Parks, most visitors & fisherfolk are pretty open and supportive of our netting a handful of lakes to reestablish habitat. It is such a major effort to get just a few lakes trout free that it's just never going to expand much in the forseeable future.
I believe most fisherfolk are supportive when they find out the comparatively small number of affected lakes. The problem has been that some sportswriters (and possibly magazine article writers) have fanned the flames of hysteria by greatly exaggerating the number of affected lakes. As a result, many fisherfolk are under the impression that an immense number of lakes will be gillnetted and they have no easy way to get a hold of specifics. Because I've been in touch with folks in fisheries management since the late 80's (initially starting with simply exchanging field data on fish populations with DFG) I've been able to find out things that the average wilderness angler cannot that easily. In fact, I myself have kind of fallen out of touch because my wife and I now fish less than 1/10 as much as we used to (having kids is main reason), hence less incentive to expend time mining various information sources. It also seems as if different groups are in charge of different restoration campaigns and one can't get all the info in one place. For example with DFG-managed programs, one pretty much has to go basin by basin. So the guy who might know changes in fisheries management policies for Desolation Wilderness won't know what's going on in the eastern High Sierra (JMW), for example. The DFG folks also won't know the extent of programs within the NPs and visa versa.

Speaking of which, what do you know about future gillnetting plans in Seki? I figured you are the one regular on this board who would know. According to what I've been told, efforts to date have focused on some unnamed ponds/lakes downstream of Helen Lake and some lakes in Sixty Lakes Basin. Is this still the situation, or have additional lakes had their fish removed (or will have them removed in the near future)? I know early generation plans targeted the remaining fishery in Swamp Lakes, and the unnamed golden-bearing lakes east of Bench Lake, as well as the big unnamed lake between Wanda and Sapphire (I had hoped the latter wouldn't get the axe given that it's Evolution's finest fishing lake, by far). Are these lakes still being considered for trout removal?
Since my fishing (etc.) website is still down, you can be distracted by geology stuff at: http://www.fresnostate.edu/csm/ees/facu ... ayshi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
User avatar
AldeFarte
Topix Regular
Posts: 215
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:46 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Eklutna, Ak.

froggies

Post by AldeFarte »

Am I correct in assuming a large polliwog is likely to be a yeller leg and a small black polliwog in shallow , mud holes is likely to be a pacific tree frog? Or is this more of my ignorance? I read that article in the fresburg beehind and have to agree with caddis. I have known a few biologists over the years and and I would not accept any biologists study carte blanche. Every single one of them has an agenda. Fill in the blanks. I wonder who put that fungi down in the Costa Rican jungle that wiped out their froggie populations? Seems to me they have been experiancing global warming down there for quite a few MILLION years. My experiance with the word extinct is that it means KAPUT! No more. Gone from the globe. There are lots of places where the froggie is alive and well. I will concede that they are not thriving over their historical range. Neither is the buffalo or the elk. Yet they are not in danger of extinction. :D jls
User avatar
giantbrookie
Founding Member & Forums Moderator
Founding Member & Forums Moderator
Posts: 3578
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:22 am
Experience: N/A
Location: Fresno
Contact:

Re: froggies

Post by giantbrookie »

AldeFarte wrote:Am I correct in assuming a large polliwog is likely to be a yeller leg and a small black polliwog in shallow , mud holes is likely to be a pacific tree frog?
Small and black sounds like some sort of a toad polliwog. Tree frog tadpoles are fairly small and shades of brown. I recall tree frog tadpoles max out at somewhere around 4 cm in length including tail, whereas the MYLF tadpoles are also brownish but longer and fatter and can exceed 6 cm in length, although they're nowhere near as large as bullfrog tadpoles (15 cm range). As a little kid I used to raise toads and Pacific tree frogs from tadpoles in a backyard pond. All the ribbetting tree frogs must have kept the neighbors up at night, given that such as sound wasn't part of the normal nocturnal background noise in the neighborhood I grew up in.
Since my fishing (etc.) website is still down, you can be distracted by geology stuff at: http://www.fresnostate.edu/csm/ees/facu ... ayshi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
User avatar
sierra_smitty
Founding Member
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2005 10:04 pm
Experience: N/A

Post by sierra_smitty »

SteveB wrote:GiantBrookie, is the database you referred to re: surveyed lakes in the Sierra online? Given some information seen here it would be interesting to examine the raw data from these surveys.

I was absolutely opposed to the whole "kill the fish to save the frog" thing until I took the time to educate myself about it, now I'm for it so long as the "powers that be" are up front about their plans, the when, the why, the where etc.

Some of the "science" out there truly is scary though..when you start off trying to prove something and your PHD or federal/state funding depends on you finding what you want to find, I'm sceptical, I think we all should be. Politics have as much a place in California's science as science does unfortunately......feel free to doubt it, but if you have your head screwed on straight, it should be no surprise. Lets just hope the best interests of those who actually enjoy these areas are protected when push comes to shove.....I'd hate to see some guy from NY who's never been here with a big smile on his face after his generous donation to some extreme enviornmental group helps close huge areas of our favorite playground to backpackers, anglers, photographers etc. I hope the day never comes when hiking or angling in the backcountry will be looked down upon...if you doubt it can happen, just look at what the pack stations are having to deal with, many would have them banned from the very trails they've blazed over the past 150 years.
Last edited by sierra_smitty on Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
gdurkee
Founding Member
Posts: 774
Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2005 8:20 pm
Experience: N/A

Post by gdurkee »

Well, as they say, it depends. Preliminary data is probably not available to the public -- that is, stuff that hasn't undergone peer review. That's kind of what science is all about. For instance, I was trying to put together a map last fall to demonstrate an area I thought should be next on the list to trap out the fish and restore it to frog habitat. I asked for the most recent data of frog & fish locations from our local biologist, who wouldn't give it to me because it was preliminary. I mean, I work for them and was doing an in-house project, but they still didn't want it out there until it had been published (plus, it wasn't his to give. The data had been collected by SNARL).

They (agencies and scientists studying froggies) definitely worry about people getting ahold of these maps, not to find the good fishing, but to reintroduce fish back to where they've been removed (once again boys & girls, that amounts to maybe 15 - 20 lakes in the entire Sierra). However, much of it is publicly available -- though I don't know where to get it. I think it's overstating it to say it's not available to the public.

Same thing with releasing information too early. Several of the researchers have generously written articles for Sierra Nature Notes, but have not felt that they could say things that they were pretty sure of but were not yet out there for peer review (in a science journal etc.).

My experience with all scientists (not just the frog folks) is that the facts lead them to conclusions. Overall, they're really bright and enthusiastic folks who just want to find out how things work. None of them go out to prove, for instance, that global warming is caused by humans. They do not have what a lot of folks here and in the popular press assume is an "agenda." The facts and models lead them to conclusions. No question there's a few with agendas, I just haven't seen it. Certainly not anywhere near the level that justifies the paranoid "they" are hiding stuff and have a hidden agenda... .

g.
Last edited by gdurkee on Tue Mar 07, 2006 11:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
gdurkee
Founding Member
Posts: 774
Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2005 8:20 pm
Experience: N/A

Post by gdurkee »

Speaking of which, what do you know about future gillnetting plans in Seki? I figured you are the one regular on this board who would know. According to what I've been told, efforts to date have focused on some unnamed ponds/lakes downstream of Helen Lake and some lakes in Sixty Lakes Basin. Is this still the situation, or have additional lakes had their fish removed (or will have them removed in the near future)? I know early generation plans targeted the remaining fishery in Swamp Lakes, and the unnamed golden-bearing lakes east of Bench Lake, as well as the big unnamed lake between Wanda and Sapphire
Giantbrookie:

Sorry. I missed your earlier post. As far as I know, the only lakes under consideration or where there's work being done are the ones below Helen (maybe 3 lakes??), 60 Lakes (and of them only 5 or so); the small lake NW of Golden Trout; a lake directly across from Golden Trout on the other side of the Canyon. I've never heard anything about Wanda or Sapphire as being under consideration. Seems really unlikely to me. The problem is you can't just do a lake -- you've got to make sure you get all the feeder streams free of fish, so you look for isolated lakes (at this stage) that have some sort of barrier (a 10 foot waterfall) to prevent fish from getting back. Kind of limits what you can actually do. You also want a basin where there's other lakes with frogs so if they're wiped out of one lake, they can repopulate from another. Finding such a combination is not easy.

It's a bummer the angler magazines get so amped up about this without checking the actual plans and what's possible... .

g.
User avatar
giantbrookie
Founding Member & Forums Moderator
Founding Member & Forums Moderator
Posts: 3578
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:22 am
Experience: N/A
Location: Fresno
Contact:

Post by giantbrookie »

gdurkee wrote:Giantbrookie:

Sorry. I missed your earlier post. As far as I know, the only lakes under consideration or where there's work being done are the ones below Helen (maybe 3 lakes??), 60 Lakes (and of them only 5 or so); the small lake NW of Golden Trout; a lake directly across from Golden Trout on the other side of the Canyon. I've never heard anything about Wanda or Sapphire as being under consideration. Seems really unlikely to me. The problem is you can't just do a lake -- you've got to make sure you get all the feeder streams free of fish, so you look for isolated lakes (at this stage) that have some sort of barrier (a 10 foot waterfall) to prevent fish from getting back. Kind of limits what you can actually do. You also want a basin where there's other lakes with frogs so if they're wiped out of one lake, they can repopulate from another. Finding such a combination is not easy.

It's a bummer the angler magazines get so amped up about this without checking the actual plans and what's possible... .

g.
Thanks for the confirmation. Indeed the big one between Wanda and Sapphire would be a major undertaking given that it has a whole system of feeder streams that are teeming with fish. The one you are referring to across from Golden Trout, I presume is Mesa? I heard both Mesa and Knob were gillnetted. I recall that are more JMW lakes slated including Bench (Onion Valley) and the upper Treasures in Bishop Creek.

Regarding your reply above about information, I agree about the reluctance of scientists to divulge data that is not part of peer-reviewed literature. Given that I am a research scientist myself I can say that it is certainly part of our normal cautious approach and what we feel to be public responsibility. As you may know, there have been a lot of missteps when scientists have gone to the press or general public before their work gets published in a rigorous peer-reviewed forum. "Cold fusion" is one of the most infamous examples. In the SF Bay area there was a notorious case of this back in the mid 90's when a loose cannon geophysicist went to the press with his interpretation that there were a gazillion active faults in the SF Bay. I benefitted mightily from this because I received research funding for two years to hunt down the on-land projections of what turned out to be phantom features. When other geophysicists finally saw the data that the interpretations were based on, the whole thing quickly evaporated, but the issue wouldn't have been such a cause celebre had it gone through the standard peer reviewed channels first--the work (ie original interpretation) would have never been published.

I also sympathize with the sensitivity of researchers to the issue you pointed out about clandestine fish stocking. Living in the era of fingerling air drops it's easy to forget that the original stocking of Sierra lakes was by coffee cans and other low-tech manual means. McDermand himself even writes about doing this (the nice goldens in Darwin Canyon may be part of his legacy in this respect).

The bottom line is that the total number of affected lakes vs those that still have fish is vanishingly small, so it has a negligible total effect on the quality of Sierran fishing. The adverse fishing impact has been dramatically overstated in magazines, newspaper articles, and in Cutter's 2nd edition.

We should also bear in mind that this lake-kill info is not the only information that is not easily accessible by the public. The basic DFG air drop allotments/schedule/distribution data is not easily accessible either. The only reason I personally got to see that information was that I exchanged data with DFG over the years (in the pre-frog era when DFG wasn't getting much funding to do field studies).
Since my fishing (etc.) website is still down, you can be distracted by geology stuff at: http://www.fresnostate.edu/csm/ees/facu ... ayshi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests