History of amphibian monitoring and inventorying in Maine Maine may have been the first state to complete a herpetological atlas. Data collection has continued since 1992, and, in 1998, a second edition of the book will be published by the University of Maine press, edited by Mac Hunter, Mark McCollough and Aram Calhoun. In 1997, Laura Monti of the University of Maine completed a master's thesis evaluating the artificial coverboard technique at the Holt Research Forest. In 1996, the groundwork was laid for beginning calling surveys. Groundtruthing of the routes generally takes 1-2 days.
Many routes run down streambeds, so a lot of time is spent on rerouting.
Two thirds of the routes needed revision. Quality assurance Coordinator is in constant contact with volunteers via email. This allows coordination of when peak choruses occur and when volunteers go out to listen. Volunteer reports of species are checked against distribution lists, and unusual reports are investigated. Two volunteers missed one of the three runs, and have been severely reprimanded.