Tualatin Hills Nature Park & Their Frogs

Posted by Laura Lucanidae July 14, 2014

Tualatin Hills Nature Park & Their Frogs

The Tualatin Hills Nature Park is an emerald oasis in the middle of suburban sprawl. We ventured there on a hot day to stroll under its green canopy. We saw lots of beautiful things. The ground near the tadpole pond was alive with thousands of tiny Pacific chorus froglets. Sadly, Jasper quickly noticed that many of them had gruesome deformities of their legs. We'd never seen this phenomena before. A hotspot of deformities was first noticed by kids in Minnesota in 1995 and has since been reported all over the country and internationally. While the deformities themselves seem to be caused by a flatworm parasite, the question is why infection rates sometimes swell dramatically. Many causes have been suggested for hotspots to form, but the mystery has never been conclusively solved. When the hotspots were first found, people wondered if whatever was causing widespread deformities in frogs couldn't cause deformities in other animals or even humans. In fact, a Minnesota native who works as a creature effects man for movies has decided to make a feature thriller film in which exactly that happens. His hope is that it will put this issue back in the spotlight. I reported Jasper's finding to Dr. Pieter Johnson at the University of Colorado, who is researching this problem, and he made arrangements to get live frogs sent to him for his study. If you spot any frogs in this unfortunate condition, Dr. Johnson is the guys who wants to know. I'm hoping his important work will help the frogs in Beaverton and around the world.

Multicolored Asian lady beetle. Photo by Jasper.

Slime mold. Photo by Jasper.

Jasper found a stunning garter snake.

Pacific chorus frog.

One of the deformed frogs. Photo by Jasper.

Photo by Jasper.

Another deformed frog.

Here's a short video in which Professor Johnson explains how the frog deformities happen and what his research is about.

I believe these are red-legged frog tadpoles.

Birdsfoot trefoil.

It's mating season for bullfrogs. They can afford to wait until long after other amphibians are done because their offspring generally remain tadpoles for two years. So they aren't in a hurry to morph into their adult form. We only glimpsed them briefly but the low-pitched thrum of their singing came through loud and clear through the birdsong.