The Brief

It had been five years since the first of the frog eggs had been moved, carefully plucked from Mexico's Baja Peninsula and transported by cooler to Southern California. Anny Peralta-Garcia was getting nervous.

The eggs belonged to California red-legged frogs, an amphibian that had been eaten, bulldozed and eventually pushed out of the state decades earlier. Peralta-Garcia, an Ensenada-based conservation biologist, had helped harvest fresh eggs from a pond in Baja. The efforts to move them back to the frogs' historic range in California had been monumental — involving private landowners, federal agencies, conservation groups, helicopters and an international border.

And now, 87 more moved egg masses later, everyone was waiting to see if it worked. If the re-introduced frogs were breeding.

"We were like, OK, if frogs reach sexual maturity in two years, maybe three, maybe four, we should be seeing something," Peralta-Garcia says. "But then, third year, fourth year, nothing."

California red-legged frogs lay hundreds of eggs, like these in Baja California. Because of natural attrition and predation, fewer than 1% of eggs survive to the tadpole phase, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Jorge Valdez

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Fauno del Noroeste

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Finally this year, the scientists tried something new to listen in on the frogs: artificial intelligence. A customized AI model sifted through thousands of hours of audio recordings from the relocation sites and picked out the sound of mature male frogs calling — grunting, more like — at their new location.

It was the first time the California red-legged frog had been heard in the wilds of San Diego County in 25 years, and a new egg mass soon followed.

It's the latest example of how new technologies like AI are helping muddy-boot biologists and wildlife conservationists fight an ever-worsening extinction crisis.

"It's been like an impossible dream since the '90s to actually be able to go out and see wild frogs at these sites again," says Robert Fisher, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Here's how it happened.

The celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County 

At about five inches, the California red-legged frog is the largest native frog species west of the Rocky Mountains. It used to be found in ponds and waterways, from northern Baja California to above the San Francisco Bay, with populations as far inland as the Sierra Nevada.

The frog's prevalence made it a popular food source in the 1800s and for miners during the California Gold Rush, says Bennett Hardy, an amphibian ecologist at the San Diego Natural History Museum. "It was kind of the hot cuisine at the time," he says.

The frog leaped to national fame with Mark Twain's short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which helped launch his writing career.

The California red-legged frog used to be prevalent in the wetlands and streams of coastal California before being displaced by invasive species, agriculture and other human development.

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Paula Sternberg Rodriguez

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San Diego Natural History Museum

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But the next 150-or-so years weren't so great. Wetlands were drained for agriculture and homes. Streams were dammed, diseases struck and the American bullfrog, a fearsome predator and the largest native frog east of the Rocky Mountains, was introduced.

In 1996, the California red-legged frog was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

"It's now occupying less than 70% of its historic range," says Susan North, director of stewardship for the Nature Conservancy in California. That includes a stretch from Los Angeles to northern Baja California with zero populations.

"So that's a 260-mile gap in the range of the species," she says. "With a gap that size, you're not going to have five-inch frogs re-colonizing their range naturally."

A group that includes the Nature Conservancy was formed in the mid-2000s, and the decision was made to help bring them back. Genetic testing showed the frogs that used to live in Southern California most closely resembled remnant populations in Mexico.

"So in thinking about reintroducing frogs and bringing them back and restoring these ecosystems, it became clear we needed a Mexican source for the frogs," Fisher says.

Using coolers, the team of federal wildlife agencies and conservation groups have moved 87 California red-legged frog egg masses to new locations in Southern California.

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Bradford Hollingsworth

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San Diego Natural History Museum

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In Mexico, Peralta-Garcia and her nonprofit Fauna del Noroeste set to work preserving the Baja Peninsula's last-remaining populations of red-legged frogs, restoring habitat and boosting their populations with the support of the U.S.-based groups.

Meanwhile, in Southern California, two sites with multiple water bodies were identified as suitable habitats in San Diego and Riverside counties. They were cleared of invasive, predatory bullfrogs.

In 2020, after a tangle of paperwork and permits, the first translocation took place.

"It was like planes, trains and automobiles," Fisher says. "It was just a lot of different moving parts."

An egg mass was moved by helicopter and car, down dirt roads and over the U.S. border to one of the prepared sites in Southern California. Others followed. The wait began.

Tasking AI to listen for frogs

The goal of a translocation, or assisted migration, is to either move a species back to a place it's been extirpated from, or to a more suitable habitat. The latter is becoming more relevant as the climate warms and ecosystems change.

For a relocation to be successful, the moved species needs to be able to survive on its own in its new environment. It needs to be self-sustaining. And to self-sustain, the frogs needed to be breeding.

During mating season, male frogs often call at night to warn other males or attract females.

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Brad Nissen

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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The easiest way to know if frogs are breeding is by listening for their calls, says Hardy. "When frogs are calling, most of the time, that's the male of the species using those calls as an advertisement."

But trying to listen out for occasional nocturnal mating calls is tedious work. "I'd love to be out there every night at these ponds, with my tent and camping and trying to listen for them, but it's just not feasible," he says.

So instead Hardy and the team set up a series of microphones around the relocation sites.

The microphones recorded audio from dusk to dawn, day after day, week after week, collecting thousands of hours of audio during the frog's winter mating season.

But that led to a new problem. Hardy says they'd need an army of ears "to be able to sort through all these files and find where the frogs are."

To help reduce the time and effort, the team partnered with outside engineers to create a custom machine learning model — similar to the popular birding app Merlin — trained to sort through the data and detect the calls of two species: the California red-legged frog and their competitor, the non-native American Bullfrog.

Microphones set up around the relocation sites recorded the "sounds of the night," says Bennett Hardy, a researcher at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

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Bradford Hollingsworth

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San Diego Natural History Museum

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It wasn't perfect at first. Hardy says that early on, the model flagged a call that it thought was a frog but was in fact a hooded merganser, a bird that's also known as the frog duck because its mating calls sound so similar to a frog's. But with time, they've been able to refine the model and are now working on a real-time alert system that will let biologists know instantaneously when a Bullfrog or red-legged frog is detected.

For Clark Winchell, a long-time muddy-boot biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the technology has been revelatory.

"I spent countless hours by myself in a kayak listening for bullfrogs. It's not the most efficient use of time," he says. "What they've done with AI on this project is incredible. It's systematic monitoring of two species."

Using the model, earlier this winter, they were able to identify the grunts of a California red-legged frog. Soon after, a survey found a new gelatinous ball of fresh eggs near the microphone that recorded it.

North, who'd helped spearhead the effort for more than a decade, says it brought tears to her eyes. There's still work to do, she says. There's still a lot of gaps in the species' historic range.

But in some parts of Southern California, for the first time in decades, she says, "We're hearing them again."

Copyright 2025 NPR

More than two dozen California Assembly Democrats and one state senator sent a letter Wednesday to legislative leaders asking them to delay fees under SB 54, the state’s landmark plastic reduction law, for two years — an eleventh-hour push as the Legislature hurtles toward the end of session.

The letter, addressed to Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, was signed by 23 Assemblymembers and Sen. Melissa Hurtado. It asks lawmakers to pause fee assessment and collection this year and next, commit to a “reform package” next session, and increase legislative oversight of the program going forward.

The request lands amid a broader fight over how the plastics law is rolling out. Little by little California is demanding that the packages you pick up at your doorstep or at the store contain less plastic. A law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed four years ago aims to phase out 25% of non-recyclable, non-compostable plastic by 2032.

To get there, the state tasked a nonprofit, the Circular Action Alliance, with drafting a plan to meet the state goals. The group estimated the work would cost $17.2 billion over five years – and is asking for a three-year exemption from the source-reduction deadline.

But as the state moves to implement the law, questions are mounting over how the organization calculates the fees producers — and eventually consumers — will pay, and how much oversight the group actually faces.

Industry groups say the price tag for complying with the law could be tens of billions of dollars higher than California originally estimated. An industry-commissioned study found the law could cost consumers three times what the state projected — between $683 and $948 a year, rather than $190.

That means groceries, shampoo bottles and other consumer goods packed in plastic could cost a little more as the law takes effect.

The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, which oversees implementation, declined an interview but said in a written statement that the law puts consumers first and pushes producers to design packaging with recycling in mind.

“Californians are facing rising costs and pollution from increasingly complex packaging that wasn’t designed for the recycling systems local governments, ratepayers, and the state developed and funded over the past four decades,” said CalRecycle director Zoe Heller. “The law’s rollout is a dial, not a switch, giving producers flexibility to redesign packaging, invest in recycling systems, reduce single-use plastics, and make adjustments along the way,” she added.

Watching the watchers

The Circular Action Alliance published its fee schedule in June, spelling out what each producer owes into the system. The fees could add up to more than $10 million for some businesses, according to the Dairy Institute of California. The Dairy Institute is a trade association that represents milk processors and dairy product manufacturers.

But unlike a state agency, the Circular Action Alliance answers to almost no one, said Katie Davey, executive director of the Dairy Institute.

“[The alliance] does not have to go through an audit by the state auditor. They’re not subject to the (California open government law) Brown Act. They’re not subject to public records requests. The Legislature does not approve their budget and does not approve how many employees they need, or how many fees they can charge,” Davey said.

As a private nonprofit, Circular Action Alliance indeed is not subject to the Brown Act or public-records law — but records it submits to CalRecycle or other government entities may be.

CalRecycle must approve its fee schedule and implementation plan, and has the authority to audit the organization’s performance, said CalRecycle spokesperson Lance Klug, who added that the plastics law includes provisions to ensure the group’s budget and fees are appropriate.

The alliance’s role “is not to set California policy,” said its spokesperson, Larine Urbina. “Our role is to implement the framework established by SB 54 under CalRecycle’s oversight.”

Davey said the gap extends to enforcement. Businesses that fall short will face so-called malus fees, which fund bonuses for those that comply. But the Circular Action Alliance hasn’t said what those fees will be.

Shane Gusman, a lobbyist for the Teamsters, which represents hundreds of thousands of California workers, raised similar concerns. “They’re a wholly independent nonprofit organization that has no oversight. That’s part of the problem.” The union backed the plastics law hoping it would boost jobs; Guzman now says the fees could affect workers too.

Shortly after the alliance published its fee schedule, Davey and a coalition of industry leaders — including the California Restaurant Association, the California League of Food Producers, the American Forest and Paper Association and the Print Creative Alliance — commissioned a study disputing CalRecycle’s numbers.

It found CalRecycle’s 2025 estimate of $21 billion in implementation costs, or $190 a year per California household, rests on “idealized assumptions that fail to capture real-world costs and complications the regulations will create.”

The study puts the number somewhere between $35 and $58 billion, rising after the implementation period.

Klug of CalRecycle said the agency’s earlier reports were just estimates. “The actual costs will be determined by producer choices,” he said. “These costs, for example, will reflect the infrastructure needed to recycle materials that producers are choosing to use.”

Agriculture groups push back 

The biggest hurdle for producers is cutting plastic use 25% by 2032 — which state regulators say will require redesigning packaging and shifting toward reusable products, such as dishes at restaurants and paper-based packaging for produce.

Business groups say they support the state’s goals but call the timeline unworkable.

Food safety is one sticking point: alternatives like paper-based containers for berries are less breathable and spoil faster, while heavier glass or cardboard adds transportation costs, said Casey Creamer, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association.

“We just don’t want to force something out and not be able to deliver a fresh, healthy commodity, or create a situation that has more significant or adverse environmental concerns just because we look at plastics and packaging in a silo,” Creamer said.

Environmental groups oppose any pause.

“All of us pay for plastic pollution through higher garbage bills and clean-ups of polluted beaches and waterways, not to mention the damage to our environment and our health,”said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste.

Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat representing coastal Los Angeles County who authored the law, said it’s time plastic producers are held accountable for the waste they produce.

“This 11th-hour Hail Mary is only trying to maintain status quo and avoid due responsibility, throwing years of good-faith negotiations, and affordability and sustainability improvements out the window,” he said in a statement about producers’ efforts to pause implementation of the law.

Businesses pass costs to consumers

Whether the plastics law is actually driving up grocery prices yet is hard to pin down. Creamer said businesses may already be factoring the organization’s planned fees into their prices.

Federal data show grocery prices dipped slightly in July from June, though prices have climbed year over year and that rate is accelerating, said Richard Volpe, a consumer-price expert at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Neither the USDA nor the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released August figures, and no data yet isolates the state plastics law’s effect from broader inflation.

Volpe said retailers, who run on thin margins, will eventually pass costs on to consumers — but probably not right away.

“It will not happen overnight,” he said. “And it will still be relatively small, mostly on the order of pennies on the dollar.”

Industry groups warn it will add up.

“If someone’s even on the cusp of food insecurity and they’re looking at $1,000 more a year, that’s pushing them over the food cliff,” said Nate Rose, a spokesperson for the California Grocers Association.

The Teamsters, which backed the plastics law hoping it would boost jobs, now worry the fees could affect workers too.

The law “has been morphed into something that is going to cost California consumers a substantial amount of money at a time when I don’t know if we need to spend thousands more on groceries,” said Gusman, the Teamsters lobbyist. “That also has an impact on the workforce.”

Father's Office built its reputation on refusing to let anyone touch its burger — no substitutions, no exceptions. Just dry-aged beef, bacon fat-caramelized onions, Gruyère, Maytag blue and arugula.

Which is why a new collaboration with hand roll specialist Uoichiba had me… scratching my head.

Yes, that’s right. For a limited time, the Office Burger can be found in hand roll form at Uoichiba locations (Sherman Oaks and DTLA), packed over rice and wrapped in nori in lieu of a bun, for $16.

The collaboration

Turns out Chef Liwei Liao (owner of Uoichiba/Joint Seafood) and Chef Sang Yoon (Father's Office) are close friends who decided to bridge their culinary worlds.

Liao says he’s actually a burger guy off the clock, and considers the Office Burger one of the most iconic in L.A.

"I'm not even a blue cheese fan, but I enjoy it in that flavor combination with the grilled onions —it's basically French onion soup in a sauce —and then his blend of cheese," Liao said.

While the hand roll combo isn’t something you see every day, it's not a total left turn for Uoichiba. The spot already runs four Wagyu hand rolls on its regular menu (cheeseburger, tartare, shabu shabu, steak), so this slots into an existing format rather than a one-off gimmick.

The Uoichiba x Father's Office collaboration hand roll, available through August.

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Grid Vongpiansuksa

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Courtesy Uoichiba

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Does it work?

So... to my verdict on trying it. Despite its unusual format, the elements hit my taste buds, and I was immediately struck by how familiar it all felt —transported straight back to the outdoor patio of Father’s Office at the Helms Bakery building, touching upon all the same notes.

That’s not a surprise, since Liao uses Yoon’s exact Office Burger recipe. “We’re literally using his cheese, his onions, his blend,” he says.

Watching the roll get assembled, it's easy to see the level of precision involved — the dry-aged beef gets a slight char from a hand-held blowtorch, then it's layered with the onion and cheese mixture and fresh arugula, the whole thing coming together like one of Vincent van Gogh's still-life vase paintings.

It's not a one-off, either — Liao said Uoichiba plans to keep doing chef collaborations like this on the hand roll bar about once a month.

Mark Baldassare has seen his fair share of eyebrow-raising political polls in his decades-long career as a public opinion researcher.

Never, though, has he encountered a completely fake survey with made-up findings.

Until this week.

“It’s disturbing,” said Baldassare, survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank.

“It’s a wake-up call for all of us.”

The poll in question, published last week by a group called Median Strategies, purported to show Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass leading City Councilmember Nithya Raman by double digits — a surprising result given Bass’s low approval rating and her administration’s recent setbacks on homelessness. It also claimed that Bass had won support from a vast majority of voters who supported insurgent Republican Spencer Pratt in the primary election.

But on Monday, Median Strategies retracted its poll and replaced its website with a disclaimer that the survey results were fabricated as part of a “short-term social experiment” and “should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data.” The group’s website also featured “polls” from the Wisconsin and Nevada gubernatorial races.

The fake results, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, duped the California Post, several local television and radio stations and even the mayor’s own campaign, which drew attention to the survey in a now-deleted X post.

The incident further underscores the importance of accuracy and precision in polling and presents yet another challenge for a public already struggling to separate fact from fiction and genuine content from AI-generated slop.

Bass’s spokesperson, Alex Stack, said campaign leadership had reviewed the polling memo that accompanied the results and decided it was legitimate given that “the poll was reported on by multiple news outlets.”

“Any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Stack said in a statement.

A scheme to rig betting markets?

It’s unclear who’s behind Median Strategies, what their true intentions were with the bogus data and whether they would’ve disclosed the deception to the public if journalists hadn’t intervened. The group did not respond to a list of emailed questions from CalMatters.

“This definitely isn’t a research experiment, right? It sounds like an excuse for very bad behavior,” said Mindy Romero, director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Inclusive Democracy.

“If we take them at their word, that this is some sort of social experiment, that’s not what reputable researchers engage in,” Romero added. “We always have to think about the harm that we’re doing.”

One alternate theory is that the false survey results were meant to manipulate prediction markets, such as Kalshi and Polymarket, in the same way that securities fraudsters “pump and dump” penny stocks. They buy low, release disingenuous information to drive the price up, then sell high and reap the windfall.

Median’s fake poll spurred high volumes of trades shortly after it was posted, though the price movements were small. The Associated Press tracked thousands of trades from roughly 20 different accounts on Polymarket within six minutes of Bass’s campaign posting about the poll on X. On Kalshi, the price of placing a “yes” bet on Bass winning the mayoral race rose roughly two cents, from 63 to 65, within 15 minutes of the post, the AP reported.

“If nothing else, Median Strategies proved the concept that a pump-and-dump scheme is easily transferrable to election prediction markets,” wrote David Dayen for The American Prospect, a left-leaning policy publication.

Could bogus polls become more common?

For Jonathan Underland, a political strategist who works with Democrat Xavier Becerra’s campaign for governor, the Median Strategies debacle reinforces how important it is to vet a poll’s reputability before sharing it on official platforms.

“I get the excitement of a poll that shows you in the lead,” Underland said. “Everything is an opportunity for your opponent to hit you. The last thing I want to do is promote a poll that’s not real.”

Baldassare detests that public opinion polls drive financial decisions, from betting markets to more traditional political decisions such as which candidates from powerful donors and political groups pour money into. He acknowledged that copycats and wannabes could follow Median Strategies’ example and pump more noise and disinformation into the political ecosystem.

But he noted a silver lining: This is happening in August, when only a fraction of people are tuned into politics, rather than October when voters have their ballots in hand.

He hopes the Median Strategies incident reminds journalists and campaign operatives to recommit to verifying the source of the information before sharing it.

When in doubt, “Call the pollster,” Baldassare said. “Make sure I’m legitimate. You know — a real person.”