High Sierra Topix

Thanks, George. But you of course realize that here you are mainly preaching to the non-choir.

Yeah, for sure. But I can't help myself sometimes. My only excuse is it looked like some new folks -- though I don't check in as often as the past. Plus, froggies! My favorite Sierra critters after Pikas.. .

With all this talk about trout eating frogs, does anybody out there use a frog or tadpole imitation? I'm guessing some sort of terrestrial pattern, could be the irresistible I've been lacking in my fly box.

PS. Russ: Not sure of what's going on now, but earlier, the frogs raised in labs had been taken from the Sierra, decontaminated, then returned. Even if "farm bred" like Condors, they'd still be native in the sense that their genetics perfectly match their original habitat.

ribbet

All fish now in the High Sierra were introduced starting in about the 1890s by packers and, much later, by California Fish and Game.

* One of the primary purposes of National Parks is to protect and preserve native critters and plants and their ecosystems. Froggies are native, fish in the High Sierra aren't..... But, really, what this comes down to is what importance people put on having a place on the earth that attempts, however imperfectly, to maintain ecosystems as they have existed for tens of thousands of years vs. fully protecting a non-native species who, in addition to eating frogs also take out huge number of insects with major effects on lake and stream ecosystems. Some early studies show a return of a number of birds because of the rebounding insect populations once fish disappear...

Gdurkee.

Thank you George for presenting for us the ecocentric viewpoint that heretofore was so distressingly scarce.

We humans are just one species, with a hideously bloated population, which is destroying Planet Earth. We are guests, not owners of the Earth.
Thankfully, due to the wonderful breadth of time (~2.5 billion years to go) we will very likely "blink out," and the biosphere will have a chance to begin anew without us ... Yay Froggies!

We are owners or stewards until the Vogon constructor fleet pulls in for a quick visit. If I pay taxes, I want a say, while still living, on how the money is spent (grants to phd's or fish removal or restoration) If you want to really get native, put back the glaciers..

But in case I can't have a trout dinner in the Sierra at a favorite lake in the future, I have a back-up plan:

http://greatchefs.com/recipes/frog-legs ... ey-sauces/

Might have to treble the legs, but I think I have the rest covered..

The problem is that it takes a whole gob of legs to get a small meal, then they just cook down to a glob of grease.

Watch out Russ, if you eat frog legs you might be destroying Planet Earth...

TahoeJeff wrote:Watch out Russ, if you eat frog legs you might be destroying Planet Earth...

I can do a nice Sierra Souffle of tadpoles as well.. Frog legs aren't fatty.

One main reason these frogs have a harder time living with fish than others is that from egg to frog takes two years, unlike many other frog species. Tadpoles don't do so well overwintering with fish.

I love ecology, and that was my education, but one thing many "environmentalists" forget is that no matter how much they want humans to go away it's not happening so you have to work with them. In other words, the public reaction is very important in environmental issues. If a small ecological benefit causes a large outcry and angers a lot of humans that enjoy wild places it only gets more difficult to get anything productive done in the future.

All that to just say that the "balance" people mention is very important. The job of managers is to protect native species, but they better leave some fish in many of the lakes or they'll end up with a lot more 'anti-environmentalists" and a lot less support for any other of protective measures.

Example: you won't see any climbers reporting peregrine falcon nesting sites for fear of losing access to managers that would rather close an entire area than only close routes that directly effect the nest. Yosemite does a good job with this and has a good relationship with climbers, other places do not. (FYI, there are WAY more active nesting sites than park biologists in SEKI think).