North American Amphibian Monitoring Program

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So it was surpassingly strange and alarming when amphibians started disappearing at unprecedented rates -- even in pristine and remote areas, like Yosemite National Park, where factors like habitat destruction and human sprawl could not be directly implicated. Some of the most famous cases are the apparent extinctions of the golden toad of Costa Rica, the golden and web-footed coquis of Puerto Rico, and the gastric brooding frogs of Australia.  Even previously abundant and common species like the leopard frogs (harvested by the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, for laboratory experiments) were becoming harder and harder to find.

It was in 1989 that scientists meeting in England for a herpetology conference made the startling discovery that all over the planet their colleagues were noticing amphibian declines and disappearances.  No one knew what to make of it. It hadn't been the subject of any scientific study -- no papers or talks had been delivered on declining amphibians.  Something needed to be done.

The problem was that there were virtually no data on the dynamics of amphibian populations -- no country in the world was able to state definitively the status of their native amphibians.  Not one.  Without baseline information on amphibians, it was impossible to assess the scope or magnitude of the problem.  To this end, scientists on every continent volunteered to be part of the Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force (DAPTF) -- "established in 1991, the DAPTF consists of a network of over 3,000 scientists and conservationists belonging to national and regional working groups which now cover more than 90 countries around the world. The mission of the DAPTF is to determine the nature, extent and causes of declines of amphibians throughout the world, and to promote means by which declines can be halted or reversed."

The NAAMP is the North American component of the international DAPTF initiative.

Monitoring programs
The North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP) comprises the nations of Canada, the US, and Mexico. There are five prongs to the monitoring strategy of NAAMP, which, if fully implemented, would cover virtually every amphibian species.

These are:
calling surveys
terrestrial salamander monitoring
aquatic surveys
atlassing
western surveys

Of these five, there are NAAMP-initiated monitoring programs for calling surveys and terrestrial salamanders which rely upon the enthusiasm and commitment of volunteers to gather data across the continent.  This data becomes part of the global pool of information being used to understand why amphibians are disappearing and how we can save them.

If you are interested in becoming part of an international team of volunteers committed to amphibian conservation, please check out the Regions page where you can find out who is doing what in your area.