With all the rain we have been having lately the team had to elicit some help from some fellow conservationists on island from Coral Cay Conservation to catch up on our tree frog surveys. We managed to catch a whopping 123 tree frogs over two surveys two nights in a row. It took a while to get used to spotting and catching the frogs but the guys were soon on a roll and the frogs came pouring in.

Coral Cay Conservation assisting the Mountain Chicken Project in tree frog swabbing on Montserrat ©Sarah-Louise Adams
Eleutherodactylus johnstonei in Montserrat ©Sarah-Louise Adams

To make sure we don’t catch the same frog twice the tree frogs are put inside the gloves which are then stapled to a tree. We then let them all go at the end of the survey. It’s just great to see them bouncing around again. These surveys are very important as the swabs we collect from the tree frog’s skin tell us how much chytrid is being carried in the tree frog population. Over time this can give us an idea of whether chytrid levels increase or decrease at different times of the year and this will help us then thinking about our mountain chicken conservation and how they might be affected (like when to release frogs for example).

Thanks for all the hard work and help guys. Hope to see you again soon. If you are interested in assisting us with these surveys please get in touch with the project coordinator in Montserrat at smithsl@gov.ms.

By Sarah-Louise Adams, Project Coordinator

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