Road Kill UCSC is a key habitat for Mark Twain's celebrated jumping frogs. But UCSC Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood seems intent on destroying it. Nowadays, it's illegal to jump red-leggeds, or even to touch them. They tend to disappear in urban settings in the vicinity of pesticides and herbicides.
Roads are especially dangerous for the little buggers.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say that the UCSC Arboretum reservoir and the riparian habitat surrounding it are a key habitat and breeding site for the frogs. But even UCSC's frogs don't have much time to polish their hops lately. They're busy avoiding cars and bikes along Empire Grade, mud and silt runoff from the western campus and, perhaps most dangerous of all, UCSC Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood as she bulldozes ahead with plans to build at least 80 housing units in the prime red-legged frog habitat. But friends of the frogs worry that the proposed housing plans are more solid that UCSC reps are letting on. They worry the development will continue in standard Greenwood fashion, devastating all amphibians in its path.