In our bid to get the Atewa Forest created as the Atewa Hills National Park, we have formed a second university chapter in the Atewa region at Presbyterian University College (PUC), Akuapem Campus. The PUC Chapter like UCAES (campus), is in close proximity to the Atewa Forest, hence, the two chapters will collaborate with SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana, and each other to help protect the critically endangered Togo Slippery Frog (Conraua derooi) while educating the local Ghanaian public on the need to protect Atewa from mining. The Atewa Forest is currently unprotected, and the critically endangered Togo Slippery Frogs (as well as over 700+ butterfly species that live there) are under serious threat from illegal logging, mountaintop removal mining and people hunting the frogs for food.

The university (PUC) is also sandwiched within a range of forested mountains that support at least fifteen frog species. Frogs restricted to highlands this way are the worst affected by climate change, thus, this chapter will collaborate with SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana to find ways to lessen climate impacts while helping the frogs to adapt.

Thanks to Michael Starkey SAVE THE FROGS! – Advisory Committee Chair for being part of the founding of this chapter, and also for donating start-up cash on behalf of SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana.

To help grow the network of the students of this chapter, and in their education campaigns we need your generous support too! Please place your tax-deductible donations here:

www.crowdrise.com/savethefrogsghana

Ghana is home to 84 known amphibian species: 78 frogs, 5 toads and a caecilian. Ghana does not have salamanders or newts. With your support, SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana will ensure that every one of these species survives long into the future! Advisory Committee Chairman Michael Starkey was able to see many species of frogs and toads during his time in Ghana. Please learn about what he found!

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Happy Save The Frog’s Day!

Yesterday thousands of people gathered in their local communities in over 30 countries around the world to celebrate amphibians and bring awareness to their conservation!

SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana organized educational Save The Frog’s Day events across Ghana, with a goal of raising amphibian awareness and specifically to reduce the frog meat trade, and to increase support of our efforts to create the Atewa Hills National Park. Yesterday over 150 people attended the Save The Frog’s Day event in Kumasi, Ghana!

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April 25th, 2013 – Kumasi, Ghana: SAVE THE FROGS! Advisory Committee Chairman Michael Starkey led a workshop on amphibian monitoring protocols and research design at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST). This university is bound to produce some excellent amphibian biologists!

SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana’s KNUST Chapter is the world’s first official student chapter of SAVE THE FROGS!. Based at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana, their mission is to protect the campus’ twelve amphibian species and to support the nationwide efforts of SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana.

Please help support our amphibian conservation efforts in Ghana by placing a tax-deductible donation today!

SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana has a dedicated network of students working to promote amphibian conservation efforts around the country. We already have student chapters at KNUST and UCAES universities. We are very excited to announce the foundation of a new student chapter at the University For Development Studies in Tamale! Located in northern Ghana. These students’ main priority will be to address the issue of over-harvesting of frogs for food and bait and to educate local communities about the importance of amphibians.

http://savethefrogs.com/chapters

Happy Earth Day from Ghana, West Africa! My name is Michael Starkey. I am an amphibian biologist and am the Chairman of the SAVE THE FROGS! Advisory Committee. For the past three years I have been working directly with SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger, and helping to spread SAVE THE FROGS! message of amphibian conservation and grow our worldwide network of supporters. Today is not only Earth Day, it is also my 26th birthday! I’m asking my friends, family, and SAVE THE FROGS! supporters for a very special gift:

Help me reach my goal of raising $2,600 to fund our amphibian conservation efforts in Ghana!

I am currently in Ghana educating kids, undergraduates and tribal leaders about the importance of protecting Ghana’s frogs, which are are under serious threat from habitat destruction, pesticides and over-harvesting for the frogmeat trade. Please help turn my dream of saving Ghana’s frogs into a reality by donating today!
Please make your tax-deductible contribution here:
www.crowdrise.com/savethefrogsghana

Since 2011, SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana has been working diligently to protect the country’s rainforests and endangered frogs. They have gotten so much done, and that’s all been made possible through the financial support of frog lovers like you. Ghana’s frogs need our help, and our friends in Ghana are hard at work, but seriously underfunded. With your assistance we will be able to give more educational presentations, print more frog educational materials for students, slow the frogmeat trade, and raise national awareness for the need to create the Atewa Hills National Park. We can grow Ghana’s network of students, academics and biologists interested in amphibian conservation efforts with your help. You can learn about our current efforts in Ghana on the SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana webpage.

As I am turning 26, please consider giving the gift of $26 to benefit my cause. Anything is greatly appreciated , even $260! We at SAVE THE FROGS! are working endlessly to bring greater consciousness to the effects we humans have on the planet, and inspire people to protect it! If you donate $26 or higher we will be sure to list your name on the SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana webpage. Thank you!

Donate here and help me reach my goal of raising $2,600 to fund our amphibian conservation efforts in Ghana, West Africa.
SAVE THE FROGS! SAVE THE WORLD!

April 19th, 2013: Chiana, Ghana

In order to bring further awareness to the devastating impacts of over-harvesting of frogs in northern Ghana, SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana held its first Save The Frogs’ Day event in Chiana! The event took place all day and included educational lectures about amphibian ecology and conservation, a play about amphibian conservation by the Youth Drama Club, drumming for the frogs, and 200 people marched around the town to celebrate frogs and to bring awareness toward their conservation.

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Hello, again, FrogBlog readers!  In my last entry, I told you that I would share more about two froggy things I am working on.  First of all, I started a petition to get Florida a State Amphibian.  I find it very strange that our state, which has so much amphibian diversity, does not officially have a single frog or
salamander to represent it!  Some people have worked really hard to get the Barking treefrog (Hyla gratiosa) to be the Florida State Amphibian for years, and they have raised a lot of awareness.  I don’t know why it hasn’t happened yet, but I believe the more support and petition signatures we get, the better chance we have.   We need to keep trying!

Barking treefrogs are very beautiful, but though I hear them sometimes, I have almost never seen one in nature.  I think that the State Amphibian should be one that most people have seen and heard, and that is why I started my own petition to help Florida get a State Amphibian, preferably the Southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris).   You can sign online at http://tinyurl.com/FLStateAmphibianWithAvalon, and in person at my booths and presentations.  You can also download a petition on my website, so you can collect your own signatures if you are in Florida.

As you know, Save the Frogs Day is coming up on April 27, 2013.  You may have seen my video about it on the Save The Frogs! YouTube channel.   I am busy getting ready for the Tampa Bay area’s Save The Frogs Day event.  In 2010, I gave a speech about this worldwide day of amphibian conservation and education action.  Every year since then, I have planned a free event where families can play games, do activities, and learn about frogs and the environment.   We are ending the event again with a human frog chorus and prize drawing!  I am so happy to have support this year from the following, which will carry over to other amphibian conservation programs that Conserve It Forward does:

- Save The Frogs Day Organizer package

- Disney Friends for Change grant

- Greening Forward Earth Savers Club Challenge grant

- Prize drawing donors:  Totem Magic: Going MAD by author John Griffith, Pacha’s Pajamas, Froguts, and more!

If you are in the Tampa Bay area, we hope to see you at Camp Bayou Outdoor Learning Center, from 10am-1:30pm on April 27^th.  You can pre-register at my organization’s website, www.ConserveItForward.org.

Last year, I sent in packages to the Mayor of Tampa and the Governor of Florida, asking them to officially recognize Save The Frogs Day.   Mayor Bob Buckhorn was awesome in issuing a Proclamation, but I was not successful with our Governor.  This year, I tried again, and I hope to have good news to report in a future blog entry!

Here are a few other places I have taken my amphibian conservation programs in the past few weeks:   Tuscawilla Learning Center’s Wild Wednesday; Camp Bayou’s Spring Open House; and Hillsborough County’s Lake, Pond & Stream Night.  “You Can Help Save Frogs,” my latest column in Bay Soundings, is now available, too, and I would love for you to read it!  http://baysoundings.com/Stories/You-Can-Help-Save-Frogs.asp

I love what I do because I feel it helps the world be a better place.   Last month, I traveled to Asheville, NC where I walked the green carpet and was awarded the Roosevelt-Ashe Conservation Award in the category of Outstanding Youth in Conservation, by Wild South.   Just this week, I attended the Hillsborough County Commissioners’ meeting where I was given the Youth Excellence and Achievement Award for Community Service.  I am so honored to be given these awards because they help raise more awareness for amphibian conservation action.

I hope you all have a great Save the Frogs Day!  I invite you to visit me online at www.ConserveItForward.org, and “like” us on Facebook at www.FB.com/ConserveItForwardWithAvalon.    Peace & love to you all!

An update from SAVE THE FROGS! Advisory Committee Chairman Michael Starkey:

Ghana’s frogs are under serious threat from habitat destruction, pollution and pesticides, and from over-harvesting for the frog meat and frog bait trades. With so many factors contributing to the decline in amphibian populations, on April 11th I traveled to Ghana in order to meet with politicians, tribal leaders, and academics in order to further SAVE THE FROGS! GHANA message of amphibian conservation. While I am here I will give presentations, grow Ghana’s network of students, academics and biologists interested in amphibian conservation efforts and work towards the creation of the Atewa Hills National Park, home of the critically endangered Togo Slippery Frog. I will teach a field course to undergraduates, advise the students of our three university chapters in Ghana, and assist with Save The Frogs Day events.

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There are only 5 spots remaining on SAVE THE FROGS’ Eco-Tour to Belize. Please sign up today to secure your spot on this adventure of a lifetime!

Can’t make it? Help SAVE THE FROGS! by sharing this exciting opportunity with your friends and family! 

You are cordially invited to join SAVE THE FROGS! on a 10-day eco-tour of Belize in July 2013! Belize is a wonderful little country located east of Guatemala and nestled beneath the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Like many countries in Central America, Belize is a hotspot of biodiversity. Belize is home to 37 amphibian species, as well as an array of bats, birds, lizards, corals and other amazing wildlife.

The trip will be led by SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger; SAVE THE FROGS! Advisory Committee Chairman Michael Starkey; and Sacramento City College Professor David Wyatt – who has been leading Belize eco-tours for 7 years! We will also be accompanied by Mayan naturalists and field guides. Group size is limited to 19 participants.

Yellow Treefrog, Dendropsophos microcephalus