The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife set aside 190,000 Central Coast acres as protected turf for the threatened red-legged frog, made famous in a Mark Twain story. On Tuesday the department declared 4 million acres statewide as critical habitat for the largest native frog in the western United States. The designation would affect development only if it required a federal permit, usually from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to build on a wetland. The agency could restrict a proposed development if it is potential frog habitat, even if no frogs are known to live on it. Land protection could help bring back a species that once ranked in the millions and is now down to small pockets, with no one population greater than 350 frogs, said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity.
Environmentalists say many of the frogs live on private property.
For years they have been vulnerable for a variety of reasons, including development. Their meaty legs give them great jumping powers but once made them a great delicacy. To date, a detailed map is not available showing where the critical territories begin and end locally. The exact number of Santa Cruz County's protected acres was unavailable Tuesday. Local critical habitat areas include coastal watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean in the North County, and coastal drainages surrounding Aptos and Soquel, Hinckley and Bates Creeks, along with Elkhorn Slough in Monterey County.