It is reprinted with permission. Scott Darling, a biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, stands in front of his green Jeep on a dirt road in the West Rutland marsh, wiggling a thermometer in the air. The sun has set and gray clouds cover the sky. The thermometer tells him that it is 47 degrees, just barely warm enough. But the noises in the marsh have already told him that the male frogs in this marsh have begun to call, starting their mating rituals.
Darling is one volunteer in an international effort to monitor frog populations.
The calling frog survey he is conducting this night is one part of a five-part study of frog and other amphibian populations. In North America, the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, part of the U.S. Geological Survey, sets the standards, creates the forms and collects the data for this calling frog survey. In Vermont, Steve Faccio, a staff biologist with the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Woodstock, coordinates 12 volunteers statewide. This first stop on Darling's Whipple Hollow route, which runs through the West Rutland marsh and part of Clarendon, is a rich one. Individual spring peepers, well, peep.