Saving 'LA’s Frog' In The San Gabriel Mountains, By Raising Them In-House

In the remote waterways of the San Gabriel Mountains, some 170 froglets are swimming and hopping in their native habitat.

They are southern mountain yellow-legged frogs — and they are so rare and threatened that these teenage frogs were raised from tadpoles by staff at the Los Angeles Zoo, Santa Ana Zoo, and the Aquarium of the Pacific.

It's all part of an ongoing conservation effort to restore the endangered native species. Last week, these froglets were released back to their homes in an undisclosed area in the San Gabriels.

Watch the release:

“It's L.A.'s frog,” said Ian Recchio, curator of herpetology at the L.A. Zoo. “It's one of the most endangered small vertebrate animals on the planet, and it lives right in our backyard.”

The frogs are small, but not the tiniest — ranging from one-and-a-half to three-and-a-quarter inches long. They come mainly in brown and yellow, but can sometimes be gray, red or greenish with mossy-looking spots that help them stay camouflaged. Notably, its belly and bottom half of its back legs are yellow, giving the frog its moniker.

LA Zoo animal keeper Sam Abundis releases the southern mountain yellow-legged frogs

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Photo Courtesy of LA Zoo

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Coming back from near extinction

Currently protected under the California Endangered Species Act, the southern mountain yellow-legged frog is close to being extinct, with just a couple hundreds in existence before the U.S. Geological Survey enlisted the L.A. Zoo to spearhead a breeding program to help restore their population in the San Gabriels.

Recchio said myriad of factors contributed to their decline: habitat loss, chemical pollutants, climate change — including more severe drought and wildfire — invasive species, and a fungus that’s killing amphibians around the world.

The frog is native to narrow ponds and streams above 5,000 feet where heavy snowfall is common in the winter. They are endemic to the San Gabriel, San Jacinto, and San Bernardino mountains, as well as the southern Sierra Nevadas.

Southern mountain yellow-legged frogs, chilling in their native habitat

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Courtesy of Adam Backlin/U.S. Geological Survey

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Recchio said if you want to spot a southern mountain yellow-legged frog for yourself, “best of luck to you in the wild right now, because [they are in a] very remote and hard to get to places and [they’re] extraordinarily rare.”

But he added while conservationists work to restore their populations, you can see them on exhibit at the L.A. Zoo until November, when the frogs will be moved to their breeding center to create more offspring for future release.