Inoculations give endangered Calif. frog shot at life
By Scott Smith, AP
Endangered California frogs are getting an immunity boost from scientists who are scooping them up from remote Sierra Nevada ponds and sending them to big city zoos for inoculation, giving them a fighting chance to beat extinction, officials said.
The experiment aims to rescue the 3-inch mountain yellow-legged frog — named for distinctive coloring under its hind legs. Scientists use nets to capture diseased tadpoles and then fly them by helicopter from their natural range deep within the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
They are next driven over 200 miles across the state to the San Francisco and Oakland zoos, where they are inoculated against a ravaging disease partly blamed for wiping them out from much of their historical range in the Sierra, scientists said.