The Sharp Park Wetlands are home to the endangered California Red-Legged Frog and San Francisco garter snake, as well as numerous bird species. Unfortunately, in 1931 the City of San Francisco built a golf course on top of the wetlands. The golf course has been killing endangered frogs and costing the City’s taxpayers money ever since.

Please send this letter and urge the City of San Francisco to vote YES on legislation that would shut down the city’s frog-killing Sharp Park Golf Course and turn the Sharp Park Wetlands over to the National Park Service.

NOW JOIN US AT SAN FRANCISCO’S CITY HALL DECEMBER 5th!
The Sharp Park vote takes place at San Francisco’s City Hall (Room 250) on December 5th, 2011 immediately following a public hearing on the matter. Please arrive by 10am and be prepared to stay until 2pm. When you arrive, please fill out a comment card so that you can speak for 2-3 minutes in front of the Board (this is your right as an American!). Don’t be afraid to speak…all you need to do at a minimum is ask the Board to protect the frogs and vote yes.

This proposed legislation was prompted by the request of 1,359 SAVE THE FROGS! supporters who sent letters to the City of San Francisco asking them to save the wetlands, and 100 people who attended our Save The Frogs Day Rally at the steps of City Hall. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote December 5th, 2011 on whether to shut down the Sharp Park Golf Gourse and give management of the wetlands to the National Park Service. Victory is on the horizon, but we need you to make your voice heard…this will be a close vote!

SF Board of Supervisor Member John Avalos:

Photos by Lee Haynes:

We are extremely pleased to inform you that SAVE THE FROGS! finished in the Top 20 Leaderboard of the Chase Community Giving Contest, earning us $25,000 for our worldwide amphibian conservation efforts. Thanks to Chase Bank and the 2,343 people who took the time to vote for us and help spread the word!!

This extra funding will be of huge assistance on our quest to SAVE THE FROGS!, enabling us to ramp up our environmental education programs and our campaigns against pesticides, the frog legs trade, dissections and habitat destruction. That being said, this generous contribution from Chase Bank in no ways covers all the costs required to fix the massive amounts of ecological damage our society has already caused; indeed a scientific report from 2007 calculated that amphibian conservation efforts require at least 80 million dollars per year…and SAVE THE FROGS! operates on about one-thousandth of that. We have seemingly endless lists of progams we would like to implement that unfortunately still lack funding. So while this unexpected influx of $25,000 is fabulous, we still rely on your support now as much as ever.

Thanks again to all who helped us win this $25,000: the frogs thank you!!!

In an effort to increase communication and participation among teachers and students interested in helping SAVE THE FROGS!, we are offering two very special webinars on Thursday November 17th: one for teachers, and one for students — though we encourage anybody to attend either or both.

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Students SAVE THE FROGS! Webinar
Thursday, November 17, 2011
5 PM – 5:45 PM US Pacific Time

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/556132129

This webinar is a strategy session intended for teachers interested in helping SAVE THE FROGS! — though anybody is welcome to attend. The webinar will be hosted by SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger, who will give a brief summary of our current activities and ways teachers can get involved. Following this recap, we will open the webinar to discussion to get your thoughts on how to increase teacher and student participation in frog conservation. All attendees will be able to ask questions or provide comments (if time allows). After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. We encourage all students to have a look at the Save The Frogs Day and Students For Frogs webpages prior to the webinar.

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Teachers SAVE THE FROGS! Webinar
Thursday, November 17, 2011
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM US Pacific Time

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/327840072

This webinar is a strategy session intended for teachers interested in helping SAVE THE FROGS! — though anybody is welcome to attend. The webinar will be hosted by SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger, who will give a brief summary of our current activities and ways teachers can get involved. Following this recap, we will open the webinar to discussion to get your thoughts on how to increase teacher and student participation in frog conservation. All attendees will be able to ask questions or provide comments (if time allows). After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. We encourage all teachers to have a look at the Save The Frogs Day and Teachers For Frogs webpages prior to the webinar.

Thanks to Muhammad Sharif Khan for creating this FREE Amphibians of Pakistan Atlas, which inspired us to create a webpage dedicated to Pakistan’s amphibians: www.savethefrogs.com/pakistan

Download this hour long radio interview of SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger on Food Integrity Now, discussing Atrazine, frog legs, chytrid fungus, dissections, politics and more. Listen to lots of other interviews at:

http://savethefrogs.com/audio/#interviews

Want to help SAVE THE FROGS! get the gear we need to do our jobs as efficiently and safely as possible? Please have a look at our brand new Wish List webpage. Thanks in advance for helping us SAVE THE FROGS!

The US Environmental Protection Agency is now seeking public comments regarding a potential ban on Atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States. The EPA’s call for comments was prompted by 10,012 petition signatures received from SAVE THE FROGS! supporters, and over 50,000 emails from supporters of the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The call for comments appeared in the September 14th, 2011 Federal Register, the official journal of the Government of the United States. View the Federal Register entry here and submit your comments here. The commenting period ends November 14th, but please don’t delay. Read our press release here. (more…)

SAVE THE FROGS! has officially opened its first international branch, SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana, based in Kumasi, Ghana, West Africa. Africa is fraught with both social and environmental problems, and Ghana is an excellent location from which to initiate SAVE THE FROGS! programs that we plan to spread far and wide across the African continent. SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger and Vice President Jonathan Tourzan were in Ghana for the month of September implementing SAVE THE FROGS! programs in schools and universities, and training SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana’s Executive Director & Ecologist Gilbert Adum to lead Africa’s amphibious revolution.

We are extremely excited about SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana, which is already receiving widespread support from Ghana’s people, and which will serve as a model for future SAVE THE FROGS! branches in many countries around the world. Ghana is an extremely poor country with very few internal funding opportunities and thus SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana relies on your support — wherever you are in the world — in order to get this much needed project off the ground. Twenty dollars goes a long way in Ghana, so we can assure you that your donation (which can be placed through STF! America) will help save many frogs!

SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger speaks to 7th graders in Kpetoe, Volta Region, eastern Ghana:

Meet Gilbert Adum, Executive Director of SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana:

Please send this letter and urge the City of San Francisco to vote YES on legislation that would shut down the city’s frog-killing Sharp Park Golf Course and turn the Sharp Park Wetlands over to the National Park Service. And please join us at City Hall (date to be announced soon!) for the public hearing, at which you will be able to speak for 2 minutes prior to the vote. We need to be extremely visible to the politicians, so we will have free t-shirts for attendees who RSVP.

This proposed legislation was prompted by the request of 1,359 SAVE THE FROGS! supporters who sent letters to the City of San Francisco asking them to save the Sharp Park Wetlands, and 100 people who attended our Save The Frogs Day Rally at the steps of City Hall. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote October 24th, 2011 on whether to shut down the Sharp Park Golf Gourse and give management of the Sharp Park Wetlands to the National Park Service. Victory is on the horizon, but we need you to make your voice heard…this will be a close vote! View our Sharp Park Press Release here.