I find inspiration for columns in some of the strangest places, like Auburn.
I don’t mean that in a bad way. Auburn is a fine town, though maybe a bit tough on frogs.
On a recent Sunday evening, my learner’s permit-wielding daughter was driving me home, up the West Hill. We were headed toward Evergreen Heights, winding between subdivisions, stormwater ponds and forest — when a small tree frog hopped across the road, jumping right in front of our car.
Today’s theme for Thinking Locally is the answer to the question, “Why did the frog cross the road?” But first, some advice to fathers of future teenage girl drivers. If you suspect your daughter has just run over a frog (or anything small and alive), whatever you do, don’t say it out loud. No good can come from the self-knowledge that she has just committed involuntary amphibicide by automobile. I recovered quickly, though, with the sort of white lie that makes for good parenting. I looked behind us and said, “Yay! He made it.”
While we avoided serious problems, the incident reminded me of the importance of something called “habitat connectivity.” This is a key concept when it comes to conserving natural areas, and is also the answer to the question above about the frog who was crossing the road. It’s something to keep in mind if we want to be effective in protecting our natural areas.
Frogs and salamanders, like many species, require a range of habitats to survive. Most amphibians spend only a small amount of their life — the breeding and juvenile stage — in ponds and wetlands. The rest of their lives are spent in forests and other “upland habitat.”
This isn’t too different from our own experiences in our homes. Think about it. You probably don’t spend your whole life in the bedroom, either.
Too often, regulations emphasize protection of wetlands and streams — so-called sensitive areas — but not the upland forests (insensitive areas?) that are also ecologically connected.
The same pattern often happens with habitat acquisition. Limited funding sources seek to emphasize the highest priority, focusing again on the streams and wetlands and forests, not so much.
Research work done by Puget Sound’s brilliant herpetologist Klaus Richter suggests that the result of focusing on the so-called sensitive areas, and not the habitat mosaic, is failing to protect native amphibians. Richter found that frogs travel half a mile to three miles from forests to wetlands for breeding. Often, the journey involves deadly road crossings — and the loss of upland forest habitat is putting pressure on amphibian populations.
“They go to the wetlands to breed,” Richter told the Seattle Times. “But then they go to the forest to live their lives, and what we have found is that the forests are disappearing, and getting smaller, and the access to them is declining because of our sprawl.”
The problem here isn’t just frogs because most native wildlife here uses both our sensitive and insensitive areas. If native frogs and other species disappear from our wetland and streams, well, those areas stop functioning like they should.
Locally, we’ve taken important strides to find ways to protect connected habitat ranges that not only provide natural areas to beautify our community, but also provide meaningful habitat that support native amphibians, birds and other critters.
In the Hylebos Watershed, Friends of the Hylebos is working with Federal Way, King County and other local governments on the Hylebos Creek Conservation Initiative, protecting and connecting 745 acres of stream, wetlands and forests from the West Hylebos Wetlands south to Commencement Bay. Federal Way’s attempt to protect Camp Kilworth, a property that includes forest, stream and natural Puget Sound shoreline, is another important step to protect connected habitat.
It seems that we understand connectivity here. The question is whether we can spread this idea around the region.
