USFWS proposes to greatly increase red-legged frog habitat

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a new proposal for designating critical habitat for the California red-legged frog.  While it’s ten times the size of their previous proposal—up to 131,091 acres in San Mateo County from 13,000 acres— it leaves out a lot of areas that are near existing development, including the city of Half Moon Bay, reports the the County Times. The new proposal was required by a lawsuit against the agency, based on interference by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior Julie MacDonald [Wikipedia].

"If you’ve got a house, a shopping center or a parking lot, a lot of those areas are not considered critical habitat areas, even if they lie within the designated area," said Al Donner, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento.

Sounds confusing, but state biologists based their habitat maps on Geographic Information System models and the location of known red-legged frog breeding ponds, then looked at their range of movement (as much as a mile) and at other potential habitats they could occupy in the immediate area. They assumed no healthy colony of frogs could exist in the back of a subdivision, so they focused on rural areas instead. Many of these, like Crystal Springs Reservoir, are already protected from development.

Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, called the proposal a "partial victory."

"Not even close to everything within those areas will be protected as critical habitat," he said, referring to sites across the entire state. "They’re including a lot of areas that we know have good frog habitat but it doesn’t include all the areas that were historically occupied by red-legged frogs."

The 60-day public comment period ends Nov. 17. To read the proposal online, go to http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-20473.pdf. To make a comment or request a public hearing, visit http://www.regulations.gov and follow directions there.