Frogs

I may have to settle for bull frogs. We will see.


scawfish, as for your earlier post about needing special permits, DFG lists several frogs that can be caught by anyone with a fishing license. These include the northern leopard frog (which I figure is what used to be on my property), the southern leopard frog and the Rio Grande leopard frog. It does not say whether these were native or not. The daily bag limit on all of them is four a day except for the good old Bull Frog and there is no limit on them.

Wondering if anybody knows of a place around the East Bay where I can catch some leopard frogs? I need to stock my ponds up on the property and want to keep it native. Leopard frogs used to be there until the water sources declined. Bull frogs won't work.

The short of it is, they are so heavily protected now even if you could find them someone would turn you in for collecting them. I've seen Caltrans shutdown major public works programs for one single frog getting ran over on a job site. On the plus side if they were there before and you make sure you mimic the original natural conditions they lived in back then, frogs are a fairly hearty and prolific creatures; if there are any in your area they will come back especially if your is the only water available. You may also try contacting the DFG and see if they have a breeding program or know of a breeding program in the state that may be willing to plant on your property it has been proposed many times in the past. Careful though as an endangered species you may have to jump through a lot of hoops to even get to that point, not to mention if they take a turn for the worse you could end up having the state dictate what you can and can't do with your own land as it may become protected habitat if the frogs did survive.
If it were me I'd try to put things back the way they used to be when the frogs were there and hope. If frogs do show up as I expect they might if there are any left in your area I wouldn't tell a soul about it unless the entire population takes another big dive. Also make sure you aren't putting anything in the ponds that were not there before, a couple of LMB could wreck havoc on your frog population in a very short time.

BigDog,

Here is a link to californiaherps.com, specifically for the Rana pipiens - Northern Leopard Frog.
http://www.californiaherps.com/frogs/pages/r.pipiens.html

Jeff

scawfish, as for your earlier post about needing special permits, DFG lists several frogs that can be caught by anyone with a fishing license. These include the northern leopard frog (which I figure is what used to be on my property), the southern leopard frog and the Rio Grande leopard frog.

True...you can harvest any of those frogs because they are all non-native.  I was under the impression you were looking for native frogs, and they are all protected, and require permits to wrangle.  Any hoo good luck on the frog hunt!

freediveca, thanks for the link. That is one that I have not seen before. I will research it.

I am basically going to follow what you suggested. I am returning the property to what it was 100 years ago. With a few improvements of course. And hopefully, nature will fill in the gaps. And in the meantime, I will continue to find a source for the northern leopard frog. There are several small lakes up in that area. I will do some scouting the summer.

I think I see the source o the confusion...are you talking about for the "east bay" or for "coon springs"? 

This search is for my property up north.