WEST PARIS — With frogs already calling in southern and coastal Maine, the rest of the state isn’t far behind.

That’s why volunteers are now being sought to survey frogs in West Paris and Bethel and across Maine.

“Vernal pools in the warmest areas of the state were hopping, literally, with wood frogs over the weekend,” Susan Gallo, a wildlife biologist with Maine Audubon and coordinator of the Maine Amphibian Monitoring Project, said Tuesday in a report.

“These harbingers of spring make an unusual duck-like ‘quack’ to attract their mates, and they make these distinctive calls for less than two weeks every spring.”

Gallo said wood frogs are the earliest frogs to emerge from the frozen mud.

“When they start calling, it means that spring is really here,” she said.

The project’s annual spring and early-summer surveys team-up volunteers across Maine to document the sounds and locations of different frog species.

Their collected data helps biologists assess the status of amphibian populations, not only across Maine but nationwide as part of an effort coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Now in its its 15th year of surveying Maine’s amphibian populations, MAMP was launched in 1997 by Maine Audubon and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Gallo said the program needs “citizen-science” volunteers to conduct two-hour roadside surveys three times throughout the spring and early summer.

Ideally, volunteers have email and Internet access and can commit to the project for more than one season.

After listening to frog calls online, and passing a quiz on identifying the sounds of different frogs found in Maine, they conduct surveys first in early spring to hear spring peepers and wood frogs, then in late spring to hear American toads and northern leopard and pickerel frogs, and finally in early summer for gray tree, green, mink and bullfrogs, she said.

Routes that need volunteers are scattered statewide:

* North Lebanon, Saco and South Parsonsfield in southern Maine.

* Casco, West Paris and Bethel in western Maine.

* Ellsworth, Orrington and Dedham in the Bangor area.

* Deblois in Downeast Maine.

* Sebec Lake and Brownville in the Dover-Foxcroft area.

* Penobscot Lake, Pittston Farm, Moose Mountain, Caucomgomac Lake and Umbazooksus Lake in northwestern Maine.

* Patten and Oakfield in the greater Houlton area.

* And Chapman (west of Presque Isle), Dickey, St. John and Musquacook Lake in northern Maine.

Gallo said volunteers make 10 stops along their routes, waiting five minutes at each and listening for frog calling activity.

“Since usually only one of Maine’s nine kinds of frogs is heard at any one time, it’s relatively easy for even first-time volunteers to identify which frogs they hear,” she said.

“The spring has been late coming. Until today, it’s been fairly dry and night temperatures have been a little low for nighttime calling activity.”

She said the season gets into full swing this week and continues through early July in southern Maine. Central and northern Maine surveys are later than those in southern Maine, sometimes as much as a month behind.

Potential volunteers should visit www.maineaudubon.org/conserve/citsci/mamp.shtml for more information about how and when surveys are done, and to see where MAMP routes are located.

Then contact Gallo at (207) 781-2330, ext. 216, or sgallo@maineaudubon.org. Be sure to include where you are located and which routes you are most interested in monitoring.

Potential volunteers as well as the public are welcome to take the quiz on frog calls, designed by the U.S. Geological Survey, at www.pwrc.usgs.gov/frogquiz. 

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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