Association of Wetland Stewards for Clayoquot & Barkley Sounds June 2015 SPLAT UPDATE

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1 SPLAT UPDATE Activity Report for activities Research & Monitoring: Tapping into local residents experiences for continued surveillance of Bullfrogs. Installing and testing new directional fencing to guide amphibians to culvert crossings. 2 3 Long term monitoring of breeding Northern Red-Legged Frogs and Northwestern Salamanders. 5 It is time to reflect on what we ve done in the last year so we can plan our next steps. We spent most of constructing new fences to replace the old plastic sheeting that led frogs and salamanders to the culverts under Highway 4. The new fences are much more attractive, durable and effective at least as far as we can tell from the first season of monitoring. But they re not perfect! As one would expect, it is difficult to prevent Treefrogs from climbing. They found a few flaws in the installation that made it possible for their sticky toes to get over the fence. We ve improved the top barrier and hope to see better results next year. It was a good year for connecting with people who wanted to help. We led workshops with the Ucluelet Aquarium staff, summer kayak guides and local residents to let them know about introduced Bullfrogs. Many folks signed up to do surveillance and the Ucluelet Aquarium helped distribute messages to visitors about preventing the spread of Bullfrogs. Several local volunteers and visiting students from Education & Outreach: Taking part in the BC Wildlife Federation s Wetland Institute. Sharing our work in a documentary, Striking Balance. Appreciating our volunteers: local residents and two visiting Quest University students. Quest University helped check traps, move amphibians across the highway, staple fence fabric to posts, dig a new fence line, review photos of amphibians using culverts, etc. We counted over 2000 Northern Red-legged Frogs egg masses at Swan Lake in 2015, a record number! Their populations appear to be doing fine at all the sites we survey. For more about our activities to share and promote wetland stewardship, read on! 6 7

2 Letter to the Alberni Valley Times Tuesday, June 24, 2014 Bullfrog Surveillance Bullfrogs were introduced to British Columbia over 50 years ago for meat farming. When the enterprise didn t pan out, they moved into the wild. Their populations have spread across the east side of Vancouver Island from Victoria to Campbell River, including Port Alberni. So far, there have been no reports of Bullfrogs on the west side of the island and we d like to keep it that way. We signed up 10 local residents, last summer, to help conduct surveillance by keeping their eyes and ears open while hiking, camping and fishing in the region. All these folks participated in our training session and would have been able to identify a Bullfrog if they d seen one. No one did. An enormous bullfrog in Port Alberni caught our attention last spring. It was fished from an irrigation pond. It weighed a whopping 3 pounds and stretched over 2 feet from its snout to toe tips. The Alberni Valley Times published a photograph of the fisherman holding up his catch, more than 1/3 rd his height, and described the negative consequences of having introduced bullfrogs in our ecosystems. Bullfrogs consume large numbers of crayfish, frogs, salamanders, snakes, turtles, birds and even small mammals, their tadpoles are serious competitors, and they may carry diseases that can have devastating effects on native species of amphibians. We wrote a response to the article to let people know about our surveillance program. We also warned that an untrained eye could mistake a native Western Toad or Red-legged Frog for a Bullfrog and that it s important to learn the difference before taking any action. Do some research before labelling animals invasive It was great to read your story on the massive bullfrog that was captured out near Beaver Creek. I appreciated the information you provided about the problems it can cause for our native species and natural ecosystems. I work with a non-profit charity in Ucluelet that promotes habitat stewardship for amphibians. We re trying to help prevent the introduction of bullfrogs to the West Coast of the island, for example, westward from Sproat Lake. One of our approaches is to tell people how they can help by not moving tadpoles or frogs around from pond to pond. We also train local people on how to identify bullfrogs by sight and sound so that they can let us know if they encounter them. There is a great website at the University of Victoria web.uvic. ca/bullfrogs/ that shows what identification features to look for so people can tell whether they have a bullfrog or a native species of frog. This is really important because two of our larger native frog species the Western Toad and the Northern Red-legged Frog, could be confused with the bullfrog and are listed under the Species At Risk Act of Canada. We wouldn t want people catching and disposing of one of our threatened frogs, thinking it s a bullfrog. For more information on our local amphibian work, please check out our blog at splatfrogtunnel.blogspot.ca. Barb Beasley Association of Wetland Stewards for Clayoquot and Barkley Sounds» We want to hear from you. 2

3 Installing fencing from the forest to the culvert entranceways Hundreds of salamanders and frogs, including the Northern Red-legged Frog, a species at risk in Canada, cross Highway 4 just north of the Ucluelet-Tofino Junction. They migrate to and from a 4-ha breeding pond called Swan Lake. The B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure installed a box culvert to serve as an amphibian underpass and reduce the numbers killed by traffic in the area in Since then, we ve monitored the culvert with wildlife cameras. It works well, in large part because fences help amphibians find their way from the forest to the culvert. the culvert last fall. To our dismay, we watched more than 100 juvenile Treefrogs climb over the new fences at the attachment points to the culvert. The fabric was cut, folded and bunched where it joined the wall of the culvert, making it possible for Treefrogs to climb over the lip. We modified the attachments in the winter and didn t see any more escapes. The true test will happen next fall when juvenile Treefrogs are on the move again. This year, it was time to replace the temporary plastic fences. We chose UV-resistant geotextile fabric, normally used for pool covers. We attached it to plastic stakes with cedar rails. We had tested to see if this design would keep frogs and salamanders contained within enclosures. It worked well, and was relatively inexpensive and easy to build across the uneven forest floor. The new fences have an overhanging lip, meant to make it difficult for frogs and salamanders to climb over the top. We set up cameras at the entrance of Pacific Treefrogs climbed over the new fences where they joined the culvert entrance. Continued on page 4 3

4 A sample of wildlife caught on camera inside the culverts Despite Treefrogs climbing, more frogs and salamanders used the culverts on peak nights in 2014 and 2015 than in previous years. Other wildlife went through them as well, including squirrels, marten, mink, ermine, mice, voles, and a female Black Bear with two cubs! Northern Red-legged Frog in box culvert Red Squirrel and Northern Red-legged Frog in dry drainage culvert Northwestern Salamander in box culvert Northwestern Salamander swimming upstream in drainage culvert American Marten in box culvert Black Bear in box culvert 4

5 Monitoring Breeding Populations In February 2015, we conducted our 9 th consecutive annual count of egg masses at Swan Lake. Northern Redlegged Frogs laid a record number just over 2000! As usual, there were considerably fewer Northwestern Salamander egg masses, only 665. Other wetlands had similar numbers to past years, indicating that both species are doing well in the region. A couple of reasons for our healthy populations: we have no invasive Bullfrogs, unpolluted water, and plenty of moist forested habitats surrounding the ponds. Our efforts to reduce road mortality also help keep numbers high. Stream restoration work has cleared the debris that blocked fish access in the tributary from Lost Shoe Creek to Swan Lake. We have been curious to see what will happen to the population of Northern Red-legged Frogs and other amphibians at Swan Lake if/when Coho Salmon, Cutthroat Trout, and Stickleback start spending the winter and early spring there. To date, no fish have moved into the lake, at least we haven t caught any while sampling tadpoles each May. Slowly, but surely we are accumulating a baseline data set that will be useful for comparison to future conditions. ACO Fencing Annual egg mass counts indicate that the breeding populations of Northern Redlegged Frogs and Northwestern Salamanders in and around Pacific Rim National Park Reserve are stable at most sites and increasing at Swan Lake! We used a fyke net and minnow traps to check for the presence of fish while monitoring tadpoles and larval salamanders at Swan Lake in mid-may. The fyke net was set at the head of the tributary that flows to Lost Shoe Creek. It caught close to 50 larval Northwestern Salamanders in one night! 5

6 Neil Fletcher Participating in the Wetlands Institute & Striking Balance It was inspirational to spend a week at the Wetlands Institute, a series of workshops hosted by the B.C. Wildife Federation. We got to share stories with over 30 people who are enthusiastically engaged in wetland stewardship in other parts of the province and elsewhere. While learning various techniques, we helped do wetland restoration at sites in Comox, Nanaimo and Duncan. These sites included Lazo Marsh where Ducks Unlimited was removing dense Reed canarygrass to expand the open water area, Simms Millenium Park Wetland where Project Watershed hopes to improve water flow, Somenos Marsh where the Somenos Marsh Wildlife Society is trying to ward off the threat of urban development, and the Cowichan Garry Oak Ecosystem Preserve where the Cowichan Land Trust has constructed ephemeral ponds, in part to protect Quamichan Lake from runoff. We learned tons! On the media outreach side of things, we had the opportunity to share the SPLAT story with the makers of a documentary called Striking Balance. Jason Jobin Lots of amphibians are killed on a road that runs through Lazo Marsh in Comox. We discussed possible mitigation solutions at the Wetlands Institute in September Striking Balance will be a television documentary about the community initiatives that pursue conservation and sustainable development in Canada s 16 Biosphere Reserves. The SPLAT Project will be part of the episode on the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. 6

7 Volunteers generously gave their time, enthusiasm & skills We have an ambitious list of things to accomplish each year. Thank goodness for the local residents and visitors who generously volunteer their time to help! Two students from Quest University gained experiential learning credits helping us in Ucluelet for a month. We gratefully acknowledge our volunteers and supporters for : B.C. Ministry of Environment Luisa Kodweiss B.C. Ministry of Transportation Elliott Moore Central Westcoast Forest Society Dennis Morgan Clayoquot Biosphere Trust Lillian Morgan Environment Canada Lisa Morgan Iisaak Forest Resources Rylee Murray Mr. Chips Mobile Milling Charlie Palmer North Island College Destiny Poruchny Pacific Rim National Park Albert Shepard Reserve Joe Atkinson Mandala Smulders Jess Edwards Thomas Sweeney Sara Gregory Zakoiya van Wyngaardt Board of Directors: Barb Beasley, Ewen Brittain, Tanya Dowdall, Gerry Schreiber, Jackie Windh P.O. Box 927 Ucluelet, British Columbia, V0R 3A0 wetlandstewards@gmail.com W