Oregon Field Guide Education Program; Focus on Organisms; Part 1

<v Steve Amen>Hello, I'd like to welcome you to the Oregon Field Guide Education Program. <v Steve Amen>I'm your host, Steve Amen. Our hope is that we've designed a program that will not only <v Steve Amen>entertain but enlighten. <v Steve Amen>This portion of the program focuses on organisms and should be viewed as a journey of <v Steve Amen>sorts. We'll be looking at Oregon's past and ending with a view towards the future. <v Steve Amen>The video segments are just 1 part of the program. <v Steve Amen>We worked with some of the leading educators around the state to provide additional <v Steve Amen>background information and suggestions for extending the experience through classroom <v Steve Amen>projects. But these are only suggestions. <v Steve Amen>This is your program. You can follow it to the letter or completely modify it to fit <v Steve Amen>your style. The outdoors is meant to be enjoyed and so is this program. <v Steve Amen>Our hope is that the reports on the lost animals of Oregon, the marbled murrelets, <v Steve Amen>opossums, amphibians, Kiger mustangs and the like are not only fun to watch, <v Steve Amen>but they give you and your students a much better idea of the complex nature of the <v Steve Amen>various ecosystems and many forces that affect them. <v Steve Amen>And with that in mind, what do you say we get started? <v Steve Amen>Throughout this segment, we'll be taking a look at a number of Oregon animals that are

<v Steve Amen>endangered, and it's crucial that we do focus a lot of our attention on them. <v Steve Amen>But first, in order to show you why it is so important, we're going to look back in time <v Steve Amen>at several species that used to thrive here but are now gone. <v Steve Amen>Hopefully, as John Tuttle reports, we can avoid some of the mistakes of the past if <v Steve Amen>we just take time to study it. <v Jon Tuttle>Once Oregon had its own buffalo, not these, but a distinct and <v Jon Tuttle>different species. The native buffalo of southeastern Oregon were bigger <v Jon Tuttle>animals with straighter horns. <v Jon Tuttle>Scientists believe Oregon's buffalo were hunted into extinction 200 years ago <v Jon Tuttle>before the first white explorers found their way into the area, but after the nomadic <v Jon Tuttle>tribes that acquired horses. <v Jon Tuttle>Horses made the Indians so much more efficient hunters that by the time the whites <v Jon Tuttle>arrived, the Oregon buffalo were gone. <v Jon Tuttle>The end of the Oregon Buffalo is the first recorded instance of an Oregon species

<v Jon Tuttle>wiped out by advancing technology. <v Jon Tuttle>That puts it first on our list of lost animals of Oregon: species that <v Jon Tuttle>have disappeared in relatively recent times, eliminated or pushed out of the way <v Jon Tuttle>by people. <v Jon Tuttle>Indians and Europeans working the Oregon coastline were equally efficient with the sea <v Jon Tuttle>otters. These animals were photographed in California waters, not Oregon. <v Jon Tuttle>Oregon has no sea otters. <v Jon Tuttle>Russian fur traders sailing the Pacific and buying hides eliminated Oregon sea <v Jon Tuttle>otters, all of them about 100 years before the earliest immigrants came down <v Jon Tuttle>the Oregon Trail. In turn, our immigrant forebearers eliminated <v Jon Tuttle>the wolves. <v Bill Haight>Wolves were common in Oregon when the white settlers first got here. <v Bill Haight>And 1 the best records we have, the last <v Bill Haight>wolf disappeared in the 1930s was uh was taken <v Bill Haight>by white men.

<v Jon Tuttle>Bill Haight, who works with threatened and endangered species for the state of Oregon. <v Bill Haight>Eh every once while somebody sees a large canine, a large dog <v Bill Haight>type animal in the backwoods of uh Oregon, we're <v Bill Haight>not sure what those are. And we've never had one of them in hand to determine what they <v Bill Haight>are. <v Jon Tuttle>Once Oregon had Northwestern Timberwolves and Plains Wolves. <v Jon Tuttle>Now it has rumors of wolves and zoo wolves. <v Jon Tuttle>And zoo grizzlies. <v Jon Tuttle>At the turn of the century, there were still grizzly bears in the Wallowas and at least a <v Jon Tuttle>single survivor in the south of the state. <v Bill Haight>Ironically, the last one that we're aware of was one that was named Real Foot <v Bill Haight>that was killed in- outside of Medford in southwestern Oregon in the early <v Bill Haight>1900s. And uh there's an animal, too, that just <v Bill Haight>was not too compatible with man's activities in the <v Bill Haight>settled parts of Oregon.

<v Jon Tuttle>The wolves and grizzlies fell prey to a belief that at the time there was 1 too <v Jon Tuttle>many species in Oregon. <v Jon Tuttle>Other species were wiped out almost without notice as their habitat gave way to expanding <v Jon Tuttle>farmlands. To the list of lost Oregon animals, add these: <v Jon Tuttle>the California condor; a wingspan of nearly 10 feet makes it the <v Jon Tuttle>biggest bird in North American. <v Jon Tuttle>There are references to California condors in Lewis and Clark's account of their <v Jon Tuttle>expedition to Oregon. <v Jon Tuttle>The explorers killed 2 of the birds in what is Clatsop County today. <v Jon Tuttle>They killed a third near present-day Portland. <v Jon Tuttle>The last reported condor in Oregon was in Lane County in 1851. <v Jon Tuttle>Also shot and killed. <v Jon Tuttle>Today, there are no California condors in Oregon and only 40 of the birds in <v Jon Tuttle>the world, all of them in zoos. <v Jon Tuttle>Then there was the fisher, a marmot-like animal pushed out of its Oregon habitat. <v Jon Tuttle>This is Fish and Wildlife's stock photo of a Fisher.

<v Jon Tuttle>Like all Oregon fishers, this animal is dead. <v Jon Tuttle>After it was stuffed, it was posed for this photograph. <v Jon Tuttle>And the lynx. As a species, there are still lynx in other states. <v Jon Tuttle>But to use the biologists' word, they have been extirpated, eliminated in Oregon, <v Jon Tuttle>trapped until there are none left. <v Jon Tuttle>Another lost bird: the sharp-tailed grouse. <v Bill Haight>Habitat modification was the big problem there as <v Bill Haight>we converted so much of that habitat into rangeland and agricultural land. <v Bill Haight>And also it, just like the bighorn sheep, it was uh <v Bill Haight>ready prey for the ranchers or the homesteaders that moved into those areas. <v Bill Haight>It was common in the draws and so forth and very, very good to eat. <v Bill Haight>So it was readily hunted. <v Bill Haight>So habitat modification and overhunting were the 2 main factors that drove <v Bill Haight>it out of existence. <v Jon Tuttle>A cousin to the prairie chicken, there were still sharp-tailed grouse in eastern Oregon <v Jon Tuttle>as late as the 1950s.

<v Jon Tuttle>There is a tendency to think of these stories as distant history and <v Jon Tuttle>to dismiss the eradication of whole species as the work of people somehow <v Jon Tuttle>less enlightened and far different than the kind of people we are today, <v Jon Tuttle>which is why there is reason to remember an odd and ugly little fish known to scientists <v Jon Tuttle>as Lampetra Minima. <v Jon Tuttle>About the only place you see specimens of minima today is in the basement of Nash <v Jon Tuttle>Hall on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis. <v Jon Tuttle>Minima, or as they are better known, Miller Lake lampreys, are no longer found <v Jon Tuttle>in Miller Lake. Now they are only found in jars. <v Jon Tuttle>Carl Bond is our guide. And as a young fisheries biologist, Professor Bond <v Jon Tuttle>was coauthor of the paper that first described the minima. <v Carl Bond>They're the uh smallest parasitic or predatory lamprey <v Carl Bond>known and they are extinct. <v Jon Tuttle>The end of the lampreys was recorded in a series of black and white photographs.

<v Bill Haight>We were uh, that is the old game commission, was attempting to <v Bill Haight>manage Miller Lake for Brook Trout. <v Bill Haight>The problem was that the lamprey found them as ready prey to parasitize. <v Speaker>[Bill Haight talks in background] <v Jon Tuttle>The problem was that for at least the last 6 to 7 thousand years, this Klamath <v Jon Tuttle>County Lake already had a native fish: the lampreys. <v Jon Tuttle>But the Oregon State Game Commission wanted to stock Miller Lake with brook trout and it <v Jon Tuttle>regarded the minima as trash fish. <v Bill Haight>If they were in the way and causing a problem, we tried to eliminate them. <v Bill Haight>So in spite of the fact that the Miller Lake lamprey was very <v Bill Haight>unique, it was causing a problem and that was the judgment of the old game commission to <v Bill Haight>get rid of it. So we used toxaphene to treat that lake, which is a very <v Bill Haight>hard pesticide-. <v Jon Tuttle>Um a poison. <v Bill Haight>A poison, yes. <v Jon Tuttle>Did you pour it into the lake? <v Bill Haight>It was uh poured into the lake, it was spread around with uh <v Bill Haight>equipment that distributed it throughout the water.

<v Bill Haight>And uh not only killed the lampreys, it kept that lake hot for about 7 years. <v Bill Haight>That is toxic for that period of time. <v Bill Haight>And we were very effective. We- we eliminated the lamprey. <v Jon Tuttle>Today, Miller Lake is known as a trout lake. <v Jon Tuttle>Biologists have searched the neighboring creeks for surviving minima, but Oregon's <v Jon Tuttle>eradication effort was apparently a 100 percent success. <v Carl Bond>I recognize them as being different and I- I talk to <v Carl Bond>people about the inadvisability <v Carl Bond>of removing them because they were different from anything else we knew about. <v Carl Bond>But uh there was no <v Carl Bond>uh really organized effort to uh stop this. <v Carl Bond>There may have been a few letters written, but <v Carl Bond>uh uh the worth of the fishery was <v Carl Bond>uh deemed to be greater than the worth of the <v Carl Bond>unique lamprey.

<v Jon Tuttle>The last of the lampreys, a total of perhaps 100 specimens, <v Jon Tuttle>are pickled in jars of alcohol. <v Carl Bond>Well, in those days we lived in a- in a different world with <v Carl Bond>different attitudes, and there was <v Carl Bond>really no way to discourage it. <v Jon Tuttle>Carl Bond is being kind, but he is probably also repeating <v Jon Tuttle>the epitaph for all the lost animals of Oregon. <v Jon Tuttle>From the Oregon buffalo to the minima, the excuse has always been that what happened <v Jon Tuttle>was part of a different time and different attitudes. <v Jon Tuttle>1 sign of these times is that the state of Oregon is now drawn up a list of species <v Jon Tuttle>it regards as sensitive. <v Jon Tuttle>Species on their way to the threatened or endangered lists. <v Speaker>[fishermen cheer] <v Jon Tuttle>The sensitive species list includes several runs of Coho, spring and fall <v Jon Tuttle>Chinook salmon, birds like the pileated woodpecker, <v Jon Tuttle>and the Townsend's big-eared bat.

<v Bill Haight>It is um a list of a little over 100 species of animals that are declining <v Bill Haight>in the state, in addition to those that are on the threatened endangered species list. <v Bill Haight>And our whole idea here is that we want to make people aware of this list. <v Bill Haight>And if land managers out there can do anything to turn around the decline in that <v Bill Haight>population and- and keep those from someday becoming listed, we're well ahead of the <v Bill Haight>game. <v Jon Tuttle>What else do you find on the list of sensitive species? <v Jon Tuttle>Bull trout and coastal cutthroats, 9 varieties of salamanders, <v Jon Tuttle>6 species of frogs, plus lesser species of owls, woodpeckers, <v Jon Tuttle>voles, snakes and rabbits. <v Jon Tuttle>A total of 107 in all. <v Jon Tuttle>This sensitivity list can be taken as a positive sign that Oregon times <v Jon Tuttle>and attitudes have changed. <v Jon Tuttle>Though if this story were being told by a wolf for a grizzly instead, it would <v Jon Tuttle>probably end with a forecast that more animals will move from the sensitive <v Jon Tuttle>list to the threatened list to endangered to lost.

<v Speaker>[kids talk in background] <v Jon Tuttle>The record shows this isn't a different world with different attitudes, yet <v Jon Tuttle>the only proven difference so far is that ours is the generation <v Jon Tuttle>that makes lists. <v Steve Amen>Only knowledge can help prevent making the same mistakes. <v Steve Amen>You can obtain the current list of sensitive species by calling the Portland office of <v Steve Amen>the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. <v Steve Amen>All along the West Coast, concern is growing about a little seabird called the marbled <v Steve Amen>murrelet. The concern is that the bird may be having serious trouble adapting to man <v Steve Amen>cause changes in its habitat. <v Steve Amen>Habitat that's miles inland in the coast range forests. <v Steve Amen>Jim Newman has the latest on an investigation of the elusive bird, research that could <v Steve Amen>have a big impact on logging. <v Jim Newman>Out beyond the breakers, the seabirds ride the gentle swells to feed on <v Jim Newman>fish and crustaceans.

<v Jim Newman>They find anchovies and sand lands and capelin within a half-mile of shore. <v Jim Newman>But the open water habitat helps make some birds a mystery to interested <v Jim Newman>humans. Feeding, sleeping, mating off shore as they do, <v Jim Newman>the seabirds live their lives well beyond the limits of casual observation. <v Jim Newman>Yet scientists have more than a casual interest in 1 robin-sized bird <v Jim Newman>making its home on the surface of the Pacific. <v Jim Newman>The behavior of the marbled murrelet may have significant impact on regional <v Jim Newman>logging practices, and researchers are studying the bird as carefully as <v Jim Newman>can be. <v Speaker>[scientists talk in background] <v Jim Newman>Kim Nelson of Oregon State University and 1 of her staff are at a city park <v Jim Newman>in Yachats on Oregon's Central Coast. <v Jim Newman>They are conducting a sea bird count. <v Jim Newman>They will diligently record sightings of rhinoceros auklets and murres and <v Jim Newman>puffins and other birds living on the ocean. <v Jim Newman>But their true purpose here is to determine the population of the marbled murrelet.

<v Jim Newman>In the 1930s, ornithologists reported the marbled murrelet was a common <v Jim Newman>bird on Oregon's coast. <v Jim Newman>Now the bird is rarely seen in much of its former habitat. <v Jim Newman>Yet marbled murrelet research is in an early stage in Oregon. <v Jim Newman>A survey just getting underway to gauge the bird's decline and learn how to <v Jim Newman>reverse the trend may take years to complete. <v Kim Nelson>Just the fact that they are so uh camouflaged and <v Kim Nelson>their whole behavior is centered around not being detected, it makes it very <v Kim Nelson>difficult for collecting information. <v Jim Newman>To study the marbled merlot is to track an entire lifecycle of the outer perimeter <v Jim Newman>of the human environment. The bird leaves the ocean to nest and produce <v Jim Newman>its young in coast range force miles inland. <v Jim Newman>And for Kim Nelson, looking for a tiny bird in the forest is like looking <v Jim Newman>for a needle in a haystack. <v Kim Nelson>Ornithologists have been trying to figure out what the murrel been doing since the late

<v Kim Nelson>1800s. They fly 60 miles an hour and <v Kim Nelson>most of their activity is at dawn and dusk when light levels are very low. <v Speaker>[Kim Nelson talks and laughs in background] <v Jim Newman>The time is 5 o'clock in the morning and we are 9 miles inland from the coast. <v Jim Newman>It is the Trout Creek drainage at the edge of the Drift Creek wilderness area. <v Jim Newman>Kim's crew of researchers deploys along a logging road at strategic intervals, <v Jim Newman>clipboard in hand. <v Kim Nelson>We end up doing observations from openings like roads or openings in the forests, just <v Kim Nelson>because it's easier for us to see. We need to see what's going on. <v Jim Newman>Tracking the marbled murrelet in the forest will help scientists learn more about what <v Jim Newman>kind of forest it needs to survive. <v Jim Newman>But this morning will not be good for bird-watching. <v Jim Newman>Kim gets a flickering glimpse of just 1 murrelet. <v Jim Newman>The team's primary contact with the bird this morning will be audio-only. <v Speaker>[birds call]. <v Kim Nelson>Just hear them give their typical keer call.

<v Kim Nelson>It's keer keer keer. <v Kim Nelson>Sounds like a gull. <v Jim Newman>Within the tapestry of morning sounds, the delicate thread of the murrelet's distinctive <v Jim Newman>call reveals some birds about 200 meters away. <v Speaker>[murrelets keer call] <v Jim Newman>Such faint contact is frustrating, but it does confirm there are marbled <v Jim Newman>murrelets nesting in this part of the forest. <v Jim Newman>Indeed, as daunting as Kim's work is, it has already produced results. <v Jim Newman>This remarkable video of an adult brooding, a newly hatched chick is the <v Jim Newman>product of the team's efforts, and Kim's research allows her to generalize <v Jim Newman>with confidence about some aspects of the marbled murrelets' behavior. <v Kim Nelson>We know that these birds nest in old-growth trees, all the nests have been found only <v Kim Nelson>in old-growth trees. We know that they're found only in mature and old-growth forests. <v Jim Newman>Eventually, Kim's investigation may help forest managers know just how much forest <v Jim Newman>should be set aside to ensure the bird's survival.

<v Jim Newman>And that search for marbled murrelet nests, nests which are needles in a very, very large <v Jim Newman>haystack, demands an odd forest specialty. <v Jim Newman>Paul Engelmeyer is a tree climber by profession. <v Jim Newman>When the research team spots nesting behavior such as silent murrelets <v Jim Newman>flying through high branches, he combs the surrounding trees for nest locations. <v Jim Newman>The female marbled murrelet often lays her egg on a branch at least 150 feet <v Jim Newman>off the ground. The search for the nest demands sheer muscle power. <v Paul Engelmeyer>I like to think that my contribution is- is opening up a world that no one- <v Paul Engelmeyer>or very few people get to look at and bring that back <v Paul Engelmeyer>to people. <v Kim Nelson>Takes time with a species like this to discover everything about its behavior and <v Kim Nelson>habitat preferences. The problem is when it comes to land management <v Kim Nelson>and with the uh conflict between saving habitat for a species <v Kim Nelson>that needs old-growth forests and the timber industry, <v Kim Nelson>which would like those trees for lumber, we are not going to have all the answers

<v Kim Nelson>immediately to provide the land manager with <v Kim Nelson>all of the information that is necessary to manage for this species. <v Jim Newman>Paul Engelmeyer's acrobatic feat yields video footage that is particularly <v Jim Newman>stunning. The fact is that as late as the mid-1970s, no <v Jim Newman>one knew where marbled murrelets made their nests. <v Jim Newman>Now scientists have a critical glimpse into the private life of a bird that is <v Jim Newman>still, in large part, a mystery. <v Kim Nelson>Adults will come back between 1 and 4 times a day. <v Kim Nelson>Each adult. So the check will be fed between 2 and 8 fish a day. <v Kim Nelson>The older it gets, the more fish it's fed. And compared to other birds like songbirds, <v Kim Nelson>it's not very much parental care at all. <v Kim Nelson>A lot of the songbirds, there will always be an adult with- with the chick. <v Jim Newman>The marbled murrelet's approach to parenthood seems consistent with a bird used to the <v Jim Newman>sea, not the land. It does not build a nest as a songbird would.

<v Jim Newman>The videos show the marbled murrelet's nest is never more than a simple cup-shaped <v Jim Newman> in the moss on a high limb. <v Jim Newman>Branches large enough to support such a nest don't exist on trees much younger <v Jim Newman>than 200 years or so. <v Kim Nelson>What they need is a large limb that provides a large platform <v Kim Nelson>in order for them to make a little depression and lay their single egg, which is about <v Kim Nelson>the size of a chicken egg. And so if you don't have a large flat <v Kim Nelson>branch that has some sort of soft substrate on it <v Kim Nelson>so that the egg will not roll off, then uh then it won't work. <v Jim Newman>The marbled murrelets' dependency on old-growth may 1 day make the bird as controversial <v Jim Newman>as the spotted owl. And Kim Nelson's data shows the merlot may be further threatened <v Jim Newman>by clearcutting practices. <v Jim Newman>23 murrelet nests have been discovered along the West Coast so far, but only <v Jim Newman>6 chicks have lived to adulthood. <v Jim Newman>That is an alarmingly bad survival rate.

<v Jim Newman>The others were eaten by predators. <v Jim Newman>This chick, for instance, disappeared from its nest. <v Jim Newman>Kim believes it was very likely taken by a great horned owl. <v Jim Newman>Kim says clearcutting generates habitat for predators like great horned owls, <v Jim Newman>ravens, and such. Marbled murrelets living in a fragmented forest landscape are more <v Jim Newman>likely to fall victim to predators. <v Jim Newman>More murrelet predators are there. <v Kim Nelson>So the populations of those predators increase in a fragmented landscape. <v Kim Nelson>All of those species are known to eat marbled murrelets. <v Kim Nelson>And so with more fragmentation, the more predators and the less <v Kim Nelson>chance that a marble murrelet chick will survive. <v Speaker>[birds call] <v Jim Newman>There is lots of work to be done before a definitive study of the marbled murrelet is <v Jim Newman>complete. Kim expects to invest years learning what she can about the creature. <v Jim Newman>She has already gathered enough facts about the bird to provide land managers <v Jim Newman>considerable guidance. <v Kim Nelson>We have found out a lot about this bird, but there are still questions unanswered

<v Kim Nelson>and those may never be answered just because of the behavior of this bird. <v Speaker>[birds call] <v Jim Newman>She tempers her optimism in part perhaps because the marbled murrelet is thought to spend <v Jim Newman>80 percent of its life at sea. <v Jim Newman>If that is true, got to be pretty easy for such a bird to keep a few secrets. <v Steve Amen>In Alaska, more research on the bird is a lot further along. <v Steve Amen>The scientists have recorded a 15 to 25 percent decline in the marble merlot population, <v Steve Amen>but it's still too soon for an accurate prediction here in Oregon. <v Steve Amen>A quick quiz: what do you consider 1 of Oregon's most unpopular animals? <v Steve Amen>Well, for a lot of people, it's the opossum, particularly if you live in the residential <v Steve Amen>areas. But as Jon Tuttle reports, the opossum may be getting a bum rap. <v Steve Amen>And he's found a number of people who believe that to know them is to love them. <v Speaker>[car honks] <v Jon Tuttle>When most Oregonians encounter opossum, it is in the worst of all possible

<v Jon Tuttle>circumstances. <v Jon Tuttle>Those we don't see in the glare of our headlights along our roadsides <v Jon Tuttle>are the occasional animal which shows up unwanted in our yards or under our porches. <v Jon Tuttle>The truth is, most of the opossums we see are dead and most of what we <v Jon Tuttle>know about the animals is hearsay. <v Charice Palmer>I think they've gotten a bum rap because people don't know anything about them. <v Charice Palmer>And I think that it's really easy to hate something to be afraid of it, <v Charice Palmer>because maybe we perceive it to be unattractive or we don't know anything about <v Charice Palmer>it and people really don't know anything about opossums. <v Charice Palmer>[fade out] <v Jon Tuttle>The point here is that while there may be prettier animals in Oregon and smarter <v Jon Tuttle>ones, it would be difficult to find an Oregon animal that is less understood. <v Jon Tuttle>Here in the northwest, there is no native Indian word for opossum because there were <v Jon Tuttle>no native opossums.

<v Jon Tuttle>Our opossums are Virginia opossums who come from the southeastern part of the United <v Jon Tuttle>States. 1 theory has it the possums were brought out west during the Great <v Jon Tuttle>Depression of the 1930s by workers at the CCC, the Civilian <v Jon Tuttle>Conservation Corps. <v Joe Pescick>I think people brought them as pets. Probably the C.C. <v Joe Pescick>boys brought them as pets and they were either turned loose or escaped. <v Joe Pescick>[fade out] <v Jon Tuttle>Joe Pejic with Oregon Fish and Wildlife. <v Joe Pescick>They have a high reproductive rate, so it didn't take too long for 'em to populate <v Joe Pescick>the entire area. <v Jon Tuttle>Opossums in the Oregon woods have to contend with bobcats and coyotes who keep their <v Jon Tuttle>numbers under control. <v Jon Tuttle>But in Oregon cities and suburbs, the oppussum, who can live on slugs and mulch, <v Jon Tuttle>has lots of ready food and just 1 enemy. <v Jon Tuttle>In numbers, would it be your guess there'd be more opossums or more people in Portland, <v Jon Tuttle>Oregon? <v Joe Pescick>Uh probably getting very close. Getting very close. <v Jon Tuttle>Opossums are catching up with us? <v Joe Pescick>Well, I think proudly that they're getting close enough that they're-

<v Joe Pescick>if we took a census right now and probably have about as many opossums as we do people. <v Jon Tuttle>Some of Portland's most pampered possums live at the Washington Park Zoo. <v Jon Tuttle>Remember being told as a child how it was our thumbs that made people unique? <v Janet Swanson>They've got a thumb just like we do, so they can climb trees and- and grab a hold of <v Janet Swanson>apples and things like that. <v Janet Swanson>See how she uses her hands, just like we use our hands? <v Janet Swanson>She hangs onto her banana. <v Jon Tuttle>Zookeeper Janet Swanson says when people first see possums, they have a predictable <v Jon Tuttle>response. <v Janet Swanson>Yuck. That's the first 1. Most people don't really like opossums, so it's usually yuck. <v Jon Tuttle>But let people see a possum up close. <v Janet Swanson>Would you like to her? <v Jon Tuttle>Pet 1 and learn a little. <v Janet Swanson>Once they learn how interesting they are then they actually like them. <v Janet Swanson>This is the only marsupial that we have here in North America. <v Janet Swanson>And a marsupial is a pouched animal. <v Janet Swanson>Gene? Gene. <v Janet Swanson>You want to help me show her pouch? <v Gene>What was that? <v Janet Swanson>You want to help me show her a pouch? I'll lift her up.

<v Janet Swanson>And then-. <v Gene>Can we see your pouch, Annabelle? <v Janet Swanson>There's your little pouch? <v Gene>Can I put my finger in your pouch, huh? <v Janet Swanson>Okay, okay she says that enough. That's enough of showin' [kid chatter in background] my <v Janet Swanson>pouch. It's kind of a personal place to go. <v Gene>I know [laughs]. <v Jon Tuttle>There is the thumb, the pouch, and there is that tail. <v Janet Swanson>It's not real attractive, but what's it kind of look like? <v Janet Swanson>Maybe a monkey's tail? <v Janet Swanson>It's called prehensile so it can hook onto things. <v Janet Swanson>Opossum's can't really hang by their tails and trees like they show in- in cartoons <v Janet Swanson>and things like that. But they when they're little, they can hook onto their mother's fur <v Janet Swanson>and it can also help keep them from falling. <v Jon Tuttle>Oregon's opossums probably have no greater advocate than Joan Dahlberg. <v Jon Tuttle>Mrs. Dahlberg operates a hotline, providing advice and even explaining where to <v Jon Tuttle>get veterinary care for injured opossums. <v Joan Dahlberg>I think they're very precious. They look like they're straight out of Walt Disney to me. <v Joan Dahlberg>[laughs] <v Jon Tuttle>We asked Mrs. Dahlberg to sit down and say some more kind things about these

<v Jon Tuttle>misunderstood animals. <v Joan Dahlberg>[laughs] What a character. <v Jon Tuttle>This story is not going to tell you that opossums are perfect. <v Joan Dahlberg>Scared, gracious all over me. <v Jon Tuttle>But across the city and state, we had no problem finding households with pet opossums. <v Jon Tuttle>Opossums who were accepted or at least tolerated by other house pets. <v Jon Tuttle>Opossums who are trained to use litter boxes. <v Jon Tuttle>Opossums who know their names and who come when they're called. <v Jon Tuttle>Opossums, who like dogs and cats, inspire genuine affection. <v Jon Tuttle>[background chatter] Cherice Palmer and Stinky. <v Charice Palmer>And my husband had said that there'd be no opossums in this house. <v Charice Palmer>But as soon as he held him up, I knew that Stinky was gonna stay. <v Charice Palmer>So he's become a real family member. <v Charice Palmer>He's um- he sleeps in the bathtub at night <v Charice Palmer>and he watches TV with us on the bed in the evening. <v Charice Palmer>And he likes macaroni and cheese and he eats it from a fork. <v Charice Palmer>And we just really adore him. He's just a sweetie.

<v Jon Tuttle>Pet opossums are not for most of us, but we found a common thread <v Jon Tuttle>in what we heard from people who know opossums. <v Jon Tuttle>Do you think possums get a bad rap in Oregon? <v Joe Pescick>Um, I believe they do. I think they're- they're not a very lovely animal. <v Joe Pescick>They got this long rat-like tail, these little beady eyes. <v Joe Pescick>They're not- they don't have big brown eyes like a deer. <v Joe Pescick>They don't- they have the rat tail. <v Joe Pescick>They're real slow. And people see 'em killed on the highways a lot. <v Joe Pescick>So they have a low value. They put a low value on the animals. <v Joe Pescick>And uh there's a lot of jokes about opossum. <v Joe Pescick>Um I think they're just 1 of uh nature's creatures. <v Joe Pescick>They have a place and uh they're very, very good survivors. <v Joe Pescick>They've been around for maybe 150000 years, um almost longer <v Joe Pescick>than anything else. And they're probably going to be around a lot, lot longer. <v Jon Tuttle>Another way to look at it is that the average lifespan of a possum is 2 years, <v Jon Tuttle>which means if the first animals arrived in the 1930s, critters like this one

<v Jon Tuttle>are now 40th generation Oregonians. <v Jon Tuttle>That makes local opossums considerably more native than most of us. <v Jon Tuttle>Native or not, as one of nature's creatures, when 1 shows up at your house, <v Jon Tuttle>Joan Dahlberg has a plea for tolerance. <v Joan Dahlberg>We would hope that they would let the opossum stay. <v Joan Dahlberg>They're just a wonderful neighbor to have in your yard. <v Joan Dahlberg>They, in fact, um will keep your yard free of insects, bugs, slugs and <v Joan Dahlberg>even uh decaying leaf debris. <v Joan Dahlberg>That's their primary diet. But we certainly try to get the word out to people <v Joan Dahlberg>about how sweet and gentle they really are and how they need our protection and how <v Joan Dahlberg>we should really let them live undisturbed because they are a precious bit of nature in <v Joan Dahlberg>our midst. <v Jon Tuttle>Another way to consider it is this: that the way most of us regard opossums <v Jon Tuttle>says more about us than it does about the animals. <v Charice Palmer>I think that it's really a shame when we hate something <v Charice Palmer>instead of get to know about it, because when we learn about something,

<v Charice Palmer>um we really turn into better people. <v Steve Amen>I think it's also interesting to note that many of the opossum lovers share the same <v Steve Amen>concerns of other animal lovers, and that's helping to keep the population down through <v Steve Amen>sterilization of opossums that our family pets. <v Steve Amen>There's been a lot of talk lately about the decline in our salmon populations. <v Steve Amen>And there're quite a few reasons for that decline. <v Steve Amen>But for now, we're going to focus on the streams along Oregon's south coast. <v Steve Amen>That's where we met 1 scientist who believes logging practices are just 1 of the <v Steve Amen>contributing factors and that something needs to be done about them, now. <v Speaker>[water flows] <v Jim Newman>Euchre Creek reaches the ocean near the town of Ophir, about 50 miles north of the <v Jim Newman>California border. <v Jim Newman>Travel a few miles upstream and it's easy to feel days away from civilization.

<v Jim Newman>If you like, to fish, Euchre Creek is a kind of place you'd want to visit in November <v Jim Newman>with a fly rod. But here's a tip: don't bother. <v Jim Newman>Not here. The most recent fall Chinook season over 60 days long <v Jim Newman>yielded 10 fish. Something's not right. <v Chris Frissell>We've seen species like fall Chinook exhibit fairly steady declines <v Chris Frissell>over the past 20 years. <v Chris Frissell>Coho salmon populations, we've seen them diminishing greatly and- and uh disappearing <v Chris Frissell>from many rivers. <v Jim Newman>Chris Frissell is a fisheries biologist from Oregon State University. <v Jim Newman>The streams of the south coast or his laboratory, his research team, including Rich <v Jim Newman>Nawa and Joe Ebersole, is studying the effects of land use on fish habitat. <v Jim Newman>Salmon were once abundant in this area, but things have changed. <v Jim Newman>The forests were logged quickly and heavily in the 50s and 60s. <v Jim Newman>Since then, the salmon in nearly every stream on the south coast are found only in very <v Jim Newman>small numbers. The state Fish and Wildlife Department classifies the fish populations

<v Jim Newman>as depressed. The list of waterways with those depressed salmon populations <v Jim Newman>includes Euchre Creek, Hunter Creek, and the Pistol, Chetco, and Winchuck <v Jim Newman>Rivers. <v Jim Newman>[background noise of scientists walking in river] But other parts of the state have been logged too, <v Jim Newman>and the salmon populations are fairly healthy in many of those areas. <v Jim Newman>So what's happened to the fish on the south coast? <v Jim Newman>Chris blames gravel. The terrain here is naturally rich with it, but <v Jim Newman>he claims too much of it is entering the streams, that it's damaging fish habitats <v Jim Newman>and that it's coming from old and new timber clear cuts. <v Chris Frissell>The main uh problem, apparently, is that there's uh large quantities of bed material <v Chris Frissell>moving through the system and it's caused the channel to become more unstable. <v Rich Nawa>Because the bed is moving so much the salmon end up burying their eggs <v Rich Nawa>in- in ground that's essentially unstable. <v Rich Nawa>It's on its way to the ocean. <v Jim Newman>According to these men, the pools where young fish live and grow are continually filled <v Jim Newman>in and fertilized salmon eggs very deep in the unstable stream beds are

<v Jim Newman>often scoured out and washed away before they can hatch. <v Jim Newman>The winter storms, which are disruptive even to stable streams, can be especially <v Jim Newman>damaging to a stream like Euchre. <v Rich Nawa>This area may have been this deep, you know, and the water was just muddy brown. <v Rich Nawa>There's no way of understanding what the- what the bed of that stream is doing during <v Rich Nawa>those flood events. <v Chris Frissell>Yeah, it tends to fill in to be about the same level that it started out. <v Chris Frissell>But in the meanwhile, it scoured down quite deeply. <v Jim Newman>In the fall of '88, a spawning salmon buried its eggs here. <v Jim Newman>Next to the egg deposit, called a red, the researchers inserted a stack of plastic <v Jim Newman>beads. Rich explains how the beads are used to record changes in the gravel stream <v Jim Newman>bed. <v Rich Nawa>We had these inside a pipe, and we drove them down into the bed of the stream so that <v Rich Nawa>this first bead was flush with the top of the stream bed. <v Rich Nawa>And since then, uh during the winter of <v Rich Nawa>uh '89, there were storm events and it pushed- it scoured the bed <v Rich Nawa>down and allowed these beads to go to the end of this wire down here.

<v Rich Nawa>And that's when we just activated them up. <v Rich Nawa>And by measuring or counting or measuring the number of beads that are down at the end, <v Rich Nawa>we know how far the stream bed scoured down. <v Rich Nawa>We got 39 centimeters, Chris. <v Chris Frissell>?Please hold? <v Rich Nawa>There's a good- there is a likelihood that a lot of the- the eggs that were buried in <v Rich Nawa>this red were lost. <v Chris Frissell>But we've documented vast quantities of- of bed load gravel materials <v Chris Frissell>and sand materials down in the lower ends of these streams. <v Chris Frissell>That seems to be a problem for fish. <v Chris Frissell>Now, it's a matter of backing up the watershed and tracing where that material is coming <v Chris Frissell>from. <v Jim Newman>Chris traces a lot of that material to sources like this: eroding tributary streams <v Jim Newman>on clearcut sites. Later in the year, Chris took us back up into the hills of the south <v Jim Newman>coast. <v Chris Frissell>This is a class 2 stream on private lands that was cut <v Chris Frissell>in 1989 during a winter flood. <v Chris Frissell>When water is pouring off through these hillsides, concentrating in these

<v Chris Frissell>little streams, they move gravel and sand down to the main stem of the river <v Chris Frissell>rather efficiently. <v Jim Newman>Class 2 is a forestry department term. <v Jim Newman>It refers to a stream with no fish in it, like this tributary of Pistol River. <v Jim Newman>A stream with fish is called a class 1. <v Jim Newman>When private land along a class 1 fish bearing stream is logged, state law requires <v Jim Newman>a protective buffer zone of trees to be left along the banks. <v Jim Newman>The buffer provides shade to keep the water cool and helps prevent erosion. <v Jim Newman>However, class 2 streams receive no such protection. <v Jim Newman>A timber company can and usually does cut to the edge of a class 2, <v Jim Newman>clear all trees and slash burn over it. <v Jim Newman>Chris thinks the state is wrong to not protect these smaller fishless streams. <v Jim Newman>They outnumber the streams with fish 5 to 1 and more importantly, the gravel and <v Jim Newman>sand that run through these fishless tributaries will end up downstream where the fish <v Jim Newman>are. According to Chris, it's not just the streams themselves that are generating <v Jim Newman>gravel. They serve as a delivery system for other sources.

<v Chris Frissell>In fact, the majority of both road failures and landslides do <v Chris Frissell>enter main stems via these small tributaries. <v Chris Frissell>We're doing a width Rich, so somewhere over by that stake. <v Jim Newman>Collapsed logging roads are not uncommon on these steep hillsides. <v Jim Newman>This failure is just north of Euchre Creek, high above the Elk River. <v Jim Newman>There's a small class 2 stream below the road. <v Jim Newman>Chris says within 8 or 10 years, much of this material will be in that stream and <v Jim Newman>eventually in the river it feeds. <v Jim Newman>Though, fisheries biologist by title, these researchers often find themselves up on the <v Jim Newman>slopes. Here, far from water, they calculate the amount of loose soil released by <v Jim Newman>the road failure. <v Jim Newman>The terrain of the south coast is steeper than in many other parts of the state. <v Jim Newman>This and the gravel rich soil add up to increased threat to the streams from logging. <v Chris Frissell>You can see with the steepness of the slopes here, virtually any part of this hill that <v Chris Frissell>fails, there is there's gonna be sediment that gets down into the stream. <v Chris Frissell>That clear cut across the way that was cut about- it looks like about 5 years ago

<v Chris Frissell>there was fairly extensive gullying down in the draws along the <v Chris Frissell>uh class 2 streams. We also had some fairly large landslides <v Chris Frissell>along the road system. And I presume that uh you know <v Chris Frissell>this conforms to present forest practices standards. <v Jim Newman>In 1972, Oregon adopted the Trendsetting Forest Practices Act. <v Jim Newman>This law was 1 of the first in the nation to require buffer zones along fish producing <v Jim Newman>streams. It promotes environmentally sound logging. <v Jim Newman>It aims to protect fish and wildlife on all state and privately owned forest land. <v Jim Newman>But though the timber companies are complying with the Forest Practices Act, damage like <v Jim Newman>this continues to occur. <v Chris Frissell>The forest practices have clearly improved, but not fast enough to keep pace with <v Chris Frissell>the kinds of risks that are being incurred by- by cutting on these extreme high erosion <v Chris Frissell>risk lands. <v Jim Newman>And Chris says that's why the fish are still depleted here, though this law has been in <v Jim Newman>place for 18 years.

<v Dale Sheridan>Why they don't come back in the southern uh streams? <v Dale Sheridan>That's somebody else's problem. I mean, it really doesn't relate, in my opinion, to <v Dale Sheridan>forestry and harvesting under our present forest practices rules. <v Dale Sheridan>[fade out] <v Jim Newman>Dale Sheridan works for the State Forestry Department. <v Jim Newman>As the forest practices forester in the Euchre Creek area, he enforces those rules. <v Jim Newman>Dale considers the Forest Practices Act to be state of the art and effective. <v Jim Newman>He doesn't appreciate the timber industries being the scapegoat in still another <v Jim Newman>controversy. And neither does Dale's supervisor, district forester <v Jim Newman>Ron Fox. <v Ron Fox>I don't know for sure where you- where you expect the industry to go. <v Ron Fox>You know are we just uh to completely stop any harvesting and uh <v Ron Fox>until such time, it's going to be proved that uh <v Ron Fox>that uh that harvesting is not going to have some impact? <v Chris Frissell>To me, it would be difficult to prove that activities like this, logging and its <v Chris Frissell>consequences, are not having effects on fish. <v Dave Loomis>State forestry, they are enforcing the rules that are enacted.

<v Dave Loomis>I guess if- if there is a problem is that the rules do not give full protection <v Dave Loomis>to those habitats. <v Jim Newman>Dave Loomis could be considered the legal guardian of the fish in the south coast <v Jim Newman>streams. He's a district fish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. <v Jim Newman>When talking about the salmon here, he does not mince words. <v Dave Loomis>It is a crisis for the numbers of fish that we're seeing in- in those streams. <v Dave Loomis>So I have a concern that through habitat problems that may be coming up again <v Dave Loomis>or just anything that happens in the near future, be it natural or manmade, we <v Dave Loomis>could, in fact, lose those populations forever. <v Jim Newman>The forests here have been growing back since the heavy harvesting of the 60s, but some <v Jim Newman>areas, like this 1, are already being recut for pulpwood. <v Jim Newman>Dave worries about the new round of recutting. <v Jim Newman>The fish, he says, may not be able to survive it. <v Dave Loomis>When they were impacted 20 years ago, it took a very good <v Dave Loomis>population down to a very low level.

<v Dave Loomis>They're not at that high level that maybe could deal with some habitat problems <v Dave Loomis>on a short term basis. Chris's study is very important. <v Dave Loomis>We've got away from the classic class 1 fish producing stream. <v Dave Loomis>Everybody knows now that needs to be protected. <v Dave Loomis>Now we need to look on the basin up on the slopes and see, well, what actually needs to <v Dave Loomis>be protected up there. <v Jim Newman>To change the way forestry is practiced here, Chris Frissell and his research team have <v Jim Newman>to generate some pretty convincing data. <v Jim Newman>Asking timber companies not to log along smaller streams is asking them to cut into their <v Jim Newman>profits and asking the state Forestry Department to take a heavier hand in regulating <v Jim Newman>private land is playing with a political hot potato. <v Jim Newman>But Chris seems undaunted. <v Chris Frissell>We have this inherited history of some- some real problems out <v Chris Frissell>there in the landscape that haven't gone away. <v Chris Frissell>We need to consider moderating our- our present-day practices, maybe even a little more <v Chris Frissell>than we- we normally would, in order to try to compensate for those- those past <v Chris Frissell>abuses.

<v Steve Amen>We first did that story back in 1989, and now almost 5 years later, <v Steve Amen>the situation appears to be even worse. <v Steve Amen>Chinook populations in some streams are down as much as 50 percent from the time we shot <v Steve Amen>the story. And the Coho are no better off than they were then. <v Steve Amen>Well, there's still talk about adapting tougher regulations, but so far it appears <v Steve Amen>to be merely cosmetic. <v Steve Amen>In the past few years, biologists have been sounding an alarm. <v Steve Amen>An entire class of animals, including thousands of species, seems to be in trouble. <v Steve Amen>It's a global problem. And as you'll see, it's an Oregon problem, too. <v Jim Newman>Frogs, toads, and salamanders: these are the amphibians, <v Jim Newman>animals with the ability to live both in and out of water wherever <v Jim Newman>they live. They're an important part of the food chain. <v Jim Newman>They eat huge numbers of insects before becoming food for other larger animals.

<v Jim Newman>But perhaps most important to us, amphibians are excellent bioindicators. <v Jim Newman>With their thin permeable skins and their exposed unprotected eggs, they're <v Jim Newman>ultra-sensitive to changes in the environment. <v Jim Newman>And that, says biologist Andy Blaustein, is why people should pay more attention <v Jim Newman>to these animals, because the amphibians are disappearing everywhere. <v Andy Blaustein>Worldwide decline of amphibians is uh a problem that is extremely perplexing <v Andy Blaustein>to lots of biologists. There have been die-offs. <v Andy Blaustein>There have been range reductions. <v Andy Blaustein>There have been animals disappearing from pristine habitat. <v Andy Blaustein>And it's been happening in all the continents in which amphibians are found. <v Jim Newman>Lost Lake is an hour and a half from Andy's office at Oregon State University. <v Jim Newman>Oregon has several lost lakes, and this one is near Santiam Pass in the Cascades. <v Jim Newman>Tree frogs seem to be plentiful here. <v Andy Blaustein>Pacific Tree Frog. <v Andy Blaustein>He's been calling a lot, he's got a nice, colorful air sac.

<v Andy Blaustein>This is the thing you hear in every Hollywood movie. <v Andy Blaustein>This species, whether it takes place in Spain or New York, <v Andy Blaustein>they use this frog. <v Interviewer>Why? <v Andy Blaustein>Because they're found in Hollywood. <v Interviewer>Oh, really? <v Jim Newman>But Andy is here to study the western toads. <v Speaker>There's a toad right there. <v Speaker>[toad makes noises] <v Jim Newman>The adults are big. They can live as long as 20 years, too, but we see <v Jim Newman>mostly juveniles, the toadlets. <v Andy Blaustein>Here's a 1-year-old toad. <v Jim Newman>We even found 1 perplex looking toadlet that had been mounted by an adult tree frog. <v Andy Blaustein>It's incredible. He thinks he's got a mate, but it's the wrong species. <v Jim Newman>The small toads, even the best of times, have a dim future. <v Jim Newman>About 99 percent will die before they reach adulthood. <v Andy Blaustein>Garter snakes are the main predator of the little toads. <v Andy Blaustein>They specialize and almost nothing else eats 'em because they have uh poisons in them.

<v Jim Newman>For a garter snake, the edge of Lost Lake is like a candy store. <v Jim Newman>This snake devoured 3 toadlets in 5 minutes. <v Andy Blaustein>That's 1 stuffed snake. <v Jim Newman>But snakes are not the reason the toads here are in trouble. <v Jim Newman>A couple of weeks ago, this was the scene of a toad mating frenzy. <v Jim Newman>Hundreds of adults laid over 3 million eggs at this spot. <v Andy Blaustein>This whole area here is all 1 solid mat of eggs. <v Jim Newman>But now it's a foul-smelling mess. <v Jim Newman>90 percent of the eggs have died. <v Jim Newman>An abnormal trend that first began 4 years ago. <v Andy Blaustein>This is the worst it's ever been. <v Andy Blaustein>They've laid more eggs this year than ever. <v Andy Blaustein>Yet more of them died than ever. <v Jim Newman>These repeated egg die-offs, coupled with the normal high mortality rate for the <v Jim Newman>juveniles, could spell disaster for the Lost Lake toads. <v Andy Blaustein>Eventually, you're going to see the population decline to extinction if this keeps up. <v Jim Newman>The same thing is happening in other nearby lakes too.

<v Jim Newman>But why? <v Andy Blaustein>Now, we've actually collected some animals from here while they were dyin', brought 'em <v Andy Blaustein>in a lab, they're doin' fine. <v Andy Blaustein>I can't figure that one. <v Jim Newman>At first, he suspected a disease or something else in the water, but back in the OSU lab, <v Jim Newman>even eggs reared in lost lake water all hatched into healthy tadpoles. <v Jim Newman>Now Andy thinks that ultraviolet or UV radiation may be the problem. <v Jim Newman>Various lab experiments have shown amphibians to be especially sensitive to UV <v Jim Newman>and around the world with the thinning ozone layer, levels of UV in the atmosphere <v Jim Newman>are increasing. <v Andy Blaustein>No one knows that much about U.V. <v Andy Blaustein>effects on animals in a natural habitat. <v Andy Blaustein>To my knowledge, this is the only study of amphibians in a field like this. <v Jim Newman>In this study, Andy will compare tadpoles hatched in open exposed trays with <v Jim Newman>others in trays shielded from UV radiation. <v Jim Newman>But the experiment is still new and at least a year away from generating any results. <v Steve Amen>There's more frog work being done up north at Portland State University.

<v Steve Amen>In the specimen room, jars of frogs line several shells, jars <v Steve Amen>with about every kind of frog ever found in Oregon. <v Steve Amen>And here another biologist is studying the amphibian decline from a different angle. <v Steve Amen>Along with the collected specimens, Mark Hayes has compiled historic records of frog <v Steve Amen>sightings throughout Oregon. <v Steve Amen>He and his team then visit the sites to see if the frogs still live there. <v Steve Amen>He's particularly interested in this animal, the western spotted frog. <v Mark Hayes>There's been quite a bit of feeling for some time that uh spotted frogs have disappeared <v Mark Hayes>from much of western Oregon, but all that information was anecdotal. <v Mark Hayes>And uh what we're trying to do now is to basically document <v Mark Hayes>its disappearance. <v Jim Newman>The spotted frog, it turns out, is in even worse shape than Mark had suspected. <v Jim Newman>He has only been able to find it at 1 of its historic locations: here at Gold Lake Bog, <v Jim Newman>also in the Cascades. But these frogs have a different story from the toads we saw <v Jim Newman>earlier. Mark knows why spotted frogs are in danger.

<v Jim Newman>They've been squeezed out of their traditional range. <v Mark Hayes>You have all this problem with habitat alteration, change in flooding regimes, and the <v Mark Hayes>introduction of a great number of different exotic aquatic predators. <v Jim Newman>Spotteds require a certain type of marshland and most of that has been drained. <v Jim Newman>Also, bass, pan fish, and bullfrogs, all of which devour smaller frogs, <v Jim Newman>now thrive in Oregon. <v Jim Newman>The Gold Lake Bog has remained a safe haven for spotteds. <v Jim Newman>Here they coexist with tree frogs and toads, <v Jim Newman>like this colorful and lumpy western toad. <v Jim Newman>Large green leeches thrive here too. They attach, or in this case, try to attach <v Jim Newman>to frogs for transportation around the marsh. <v Jim Newman>But the leeches don't harm their amphibious hosts. <v Jim Newman>The spotted frog has reached the brink of extinction in western Oregon, and largely <v Jim Newman>because of Mark's research, this frog may soon appear on the endangered species list. <v Jim Newman>There used to be spotted frogs here on the side of Mount Hood in places like Trapper

<v Jim Newman>Springs Creek. <v Jim Newman>But here Mark thinks cattle were the problem. <v Mark Hayes>You had grazing practices during the late 60s and 70s <v Mark Hayes>that uh really damaged some of the meadow areas. <v Jim Newman>He comes to Trapper Springs Creek to study red legged frogs, which continue to flourish <v Jim Newman>here. <v Jim Newman>Red leggeds are not endangered, but they, too, have become scarce in their traditional <v Jim Newman>Willamette Valley range. <v Mark Hayes>The primary reasons there are introduction of bullfrogs and <v Mark Hayes>warm freshwater fishes. <v Jim Newman>There are amphibians that are not on the decline. <v Jim Newman>And here's 1. While some other salamanders around the world are in serious trouble, <v Jim Newman>the rough-skinned newt is a notable exception. <v Mark Hayes>With this species, there isn't much evidence of it declining anywhere. <v Mark Hayes>In fact, in a number of places, it's becoming the dominant amphibian. <v Mark Hayes>It's also a predator on the eggs and larvae of quite a number of other amphibians.

<v Mark Hayes>They have skin toxins that are not too different from those that you find <v Mark Hayes>in puffer fish. And uh there's not too many things that will eat them. <v Jim Newman>In Oregon, as around the world, the overall numbers of amphibians are down. <v Jim Newman>In many cases, as with the frogs that Mark studies, the reasons are identifiable, <v Jim Newman>like loss of habitat, predatory fish, or water pollution. <v Jim Newman>That's bad enough, he says. But at least we can work to preserve the good habitat that is <v Jim Newman>left and the amphibians that live there. <v Jim Newman>What really troubles Marc and many other biologists are the unexplained disappearances, <v Jim Newman>mostly in the higher elevations. The pristine environments were no obvious problems <v Jim Newman>exist. <v Mark Hayes>There are sort of parallel reports for the Andes in South America, <v Mark Hayes>for the Alps in Europe, for mountains in Australia, in which <v Mark Hayes>you have complete disappearance of certain populations. <v Jim Newman>And now in places like Lost Lake in Oregon's Cascades, the western toad

<v Jim Newman>eggs are dying every year. <v Jim Newman>Increased U.V. radiation may be the cause of these high elevation declines. <v Jim Newman>And if, as Andy says, amphibians are like canaries in a coal mine, that's <v Jim Newman>bad news. <v Andy Blaustein>This is very scary to me as a person, a human being. <v Andy Blaustein>If we have this environmental change that we're not detecting yet and if it is destroying <v Andy Blaustein>amphibians as the first indicator, we've got problems, major league, global problems. <v Steve Amen>Andy says he's received hundreds of letters from Oregonians about old ponds and creeks <v Steve Amen>where the frogs have disappeared over the years. <v Steve Amen>He has yet to come up with just 1 where the population is on the increase.