The population of the dusky gopher frog, also referred to as the Mississippi gopher, has been feared to go extinct after the shrinking of wet-pines savannah—which was its former natural habitat—took place several years ago. Fortunately, a preservation program was established to spare the endangered amphibian from extinction.

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Despite having a long list of naturally feisty predators that include spiders and snakes, Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge ranger Melissa Perez revealed that the main reason why the dusky gopher frogs are going extinct is because of the depletion of their natural habitat.

"The wet-pines savannah that makes up our refuge is a critically endangered area," Perez said as quoted by Sun Herald. "It's not a coincidence that the frog population continues to decrease as the refuge grows smaller."

In hopes of repopulating the amphibians fast, Mississippi Sandhill Crane Wildlife Refuge in Gautier established a refuge site for the dusky gopher frogs to be their new habitat. And on June 12, 56 of the critically endangered amphibians were released into the wild. Since May, a total of 1,074 endangered frogs have been released into the refuge in Jackson County, NYC Today reported.

"We are taking an existing population of the frogs from Saucier, in Harrison County, and repopulating them elsewhere," wildlife biologist Angie Dedrickson said. "By bringing the frogs to Jackson County, we now have two critically endangered species on our South Mississippi refuge - we also house the endangered Mississippi Sandhill crane."

Dedrickson also added that they really made an effort in mimicking the natural habitat of the frogs by separating the tadpoles, which were hatched in Saucier, in 50 tanks filled with water, pine straw and sweet gum leaves.

According to Daily Times Gazette, once the tadpoles mature into frogs, they are placed in different containers and shipped to Vancleave, before they are released into their new refuge.

In order to follow, monitor and analyze the progress of the dusky gopher frogs, each amphibian has a tracking device placed on its left leg. And while the process from birth to release only takes a few months, Dedrickson admitted that the success of the program can be fully gauged after a few more years.

Since 2001, the dusky gopher frog has been on the endangered-species list and is currently classified as a "critically endangered" amphibian.

Tagsfrog, amphibian, endangered species, extinction, Science