Home
Donate Sign up for e-network
CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY Because life is good
ABOUT ACTION PROGRAMS SPECIES NEWSROOM PUBLICATIONS SUPPORT

Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.

Get Adobe Flash player

SAVING THE mountain yellow-legged frog

The mountain yellow-legged frog was once the most abundant amphibian in the Sierra Nevada and Transverse Ranges of Southern California. Only a few decades ago, it was difficult to walk around many of California’s alpine lakes without tripping over these diminutive “mountain gnomes.” Today the hardy survivors of freezing, high-elevation winters are vulnerable to a host of modern threats, which have driven the frogs extinct in more than 93 percent of their old mountain homes.

The mountain yellow-legged frog has two different populations that have been declared separate subspecies: a northern and central Sierra Nevada population and a southern Sierra Nevada and Southern California population. Both populations are adapted to high-elevation habitats without aquatic predators. So it’s not surprising that the main reason for the frog’s decline is the California Department of Fish and Game’s introduction of nonnative trout to alpine lakes. These stocked fish prey upon tadpoles and juvenile frogs, and scientists predict that the yellow-legged frog could be extinct within decades. It has disappeared from the vast majority of known historical locations, and most of the largest remaining populations have recently fallen to near-collapse.

The Center filed a petition to add the Sierra Nevada population to the endangered species list in 2000, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service instead placed this frog on the candidate list, a regulatory limbo that offers no substantive protections. A recent settlement agreement with the Center, which will also speed protection decisions for 756 other species, requires the Service in 2013 to make a decision about whether to add the Sierra frog to the federal endangered list.

The Center is working to gain full federal Endangered Species Act protection for Sierra Nevada mountain yellow-legged frogs — and meanwhile, thanks to our work, the California Fish and Game Commission designated all populations of the mountain yellow-legged frog as a candidate species, the first step toward a state listing as endangered or threatened. 

Southern California mountain yellow-legged frogs have been protected under the Endangered Species Act for about a decade, but the Service has yet to develop a recovery plan to guide their management. To speed recovery of the frogs and other imperiled California amphibians without recovery plans, the Center launched a lawsuit to force the Service to develop the legally required plans.
Get the latest on our work for biodiversity and learn how to help in our free weekly e-newsletter.
KEY DOCUMENTS
2011 Notice of intent to sue to earn recovery plan
2010 California Endangered Species Act listing petition
2001-2007 Scientific reports
2000 Federal Endangered Species Act listing petition for Sierra Nevada population

ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE

ACTION TIMELINE

NATURAL HISTORY

MEDIA
Press releases
Media highlights
Search our newsroom for the Sierra Nevada mountain yellow-legged frog

RELATED ISSUES
Amphibian Conservation
Fish-stocking Reform
Pesticides Reduction
The Endangered Species Act

DETRITUS
More amphibian resources
Download a mountain yellow-legged frog ringtone for your cell phone

Contact: Collette Adkins Giese

Photo © William Flaxington