Protected status given to Sierra amphibians
By Dana M. Nichols, Stockton Record
SAN ANDREAS — The yellow-legged frog, a native of the High Sierra, will soon be listed as an endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday.
The service also said that it will soon list the Yosemite toad as threatened with extinction.
The listings will mean new legal protections for two species of yellow-legged frog and for the toad, which live at high altitudes primarily on federal forest or national park lands.
The listings was published Tuesday in the Federal Register on Tuesday and will become final on June 30. The action caps almost a decade and a half of legal and political conflict over the amphibians.