Project Update From Tahoe National Forest
Hundreds of volunteers worked with the U.S. Forest Service, SAVE THE FROGS! and the Sheltowee Environmental Education Coalition in 2021 to build 18-wetlands on dry mountain ridge tops to provide habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii) on the American River Ranger District of the Tahoe National Forest. The project received major funding from the Nevada and Placer County Secure Rural Schools & Community Self Determination Act Program and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Sixteen of the wetlands were built using aquatic-safe liners that were protected by thick layers of geotextile and then covered with 8-inches of soil. Liners were used because the wetlands were built on rocky mountain ridge tops that did not have clay soil. The project was coordinated by Dan Teater, Fisheries Biologist on the American River Ranger District and Tom Biebighauser. Dan found that Sierran tree frogs soon discovered the new wetlands when they filled with water in the spring.
Unfortunately, the Mosquito Fire burned the area where the wetlands had been built in the fall of 2022. This major fire burned for approximately 46 days, destroying homes and small businesses, and scorching more than 76,000 acres of the Tahoe National Forest and privately-owned lands near the community of Foresthill, California. All the newly constructed wetlands were impacted by this catastrophic fire along with the hundreds of logs and branches placed in and around the wetlands to provide habitat for the California red-legged frog.
Immediately after the Mosquito Fire the Forest Service went to work utilizing Burned Area Emergency Response treatments to stabilize the sites. They deployed mulch, reconditioned roads, and installed water bars to protect the investments and minimize impacts from sedimentation. Agency personnel applied for Burned Area Rehabilitation funds to purchase native seed and container plants like sedges and rushes. This boosted post fire recovery and provided frogs with improved habitat in the burned over wetlands.
There was great concern if the 16-wetlands built with aquatic-safe liners had survived the major fire. Dan Teater found this spring that all the wetlands built using liners were holding water at full capacity. This was the first test we knew of showing that wetlands built using aquatic-safe liners could survive a forest fire that was hot enough to burn the logs and branches placed in the wetlands to provide habitat for the frogs.
Monitoring the wetlands this spring revealed thousands of Sierran tree frogs of all life stages utilizing all the constructed wetlands. Each new plant had Sierran tree frog egg masses attached to them. This was amazing to see in a post fire landscape.
While Dan Teater was touring the wetlands in early May with staff from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service the group was overjoyed to detect two California red-legged frogs using one of the wetlands built with a liner. Things only got better when Dan Teater, Issac Chellman (California Department of Fish and Wildlife), and Tom observed three California red-legged frogs using the same wetland on May 17, 2024. Dan and Tom went on to find a California red-legged frog using a second wetland built using a liner on a different ridge later the same day.
Tom returned to the Tahoe National Forest in May to work with the Forest Service to install an aquatic-safe liner in one of the large wetlands built using clay soil that was not holding water as planned. A dedicated group of hard-working agency personnel built the large naturally appearing wetland deep enough to contain water through a severe drought.
Tom has also worked with the Forest Service to build wetlands with and without aquatic-safe liners on the Eldorado National Forest near Placerville, California in 2014 and 2016, and on the Plumas National Forest near Oroville in 2017 and 2019 to provide habitat for the California red-legged frog. Monitoring by Forest Service personnel shows that many of these wetlands are being used for breeding by the California red-legged frog.
Photos on this page by Dan Teater, Elizabeth McDonnell and Tom Biebighauser.
