Volunteers help with toad count

SULLIVAN TOWNSHIP, Ohio (AP) — This time of year in Ohio, volunteers are out in the dark of night, listening for the sounds of frogs and toads among the state’s ponds, streams and ditches.

For the last 12 years, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has been compiling data to track the range and population of the animals. Dozens of volunteers have been helping in the spring and summer months.

The citizen scientists learn to recognize the different sounds of the different frogs and toads and note their locations.

“It’s a gray tree frog,” Debra Beckstett whispered to Christine Whelan on a recent night in rural Ashland County. “Two of them, I think. They’re calling out to each other.”

Ohio officials plan to begin analyzing the 12-year accumulation of information to get a better reading on the health of the amphibian population in the state.

Ohio’s survey grew out of worldwide concern about the future of many amphibians.

Scientists contemplate the possibility of frog and toad species’ being wiped out by a killer fungus or habitat loss, pollution and other manmade problems.

Half of the planet’s 6,000 amphibian species face the threat of extinction.