FrogSpotter App

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FrogSpotter App

Postby Overlandman » Thu 05 May, 2016 3:49 pm

From ABC.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-05/f ... se/7386968

Croaking frogs can now be recorded on an app which sends the information to a national database to help build a picture of environmental health.

The FrogSpotter app lets its users record sound, take photographs and note details of habitat, weather, the time of day and a precise location.

"The idea is to get groups and individuals all participating in the program because it's about connecting people with environment," said Professor Chris Daniels of the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board.

"Everybody has got their phone with them all the time so it's a really easy way to gather information."

Students from West Beach Primary School in Adelaide tested the app in wetlands not far from their classrooms.

Caitlin Drewer, from Year 7, said she loved the chance to compare her discoveries with those other people made.

"It's really cool. When you do the surveys there's so many different choices and you can look at other people's surveys and see what they've found in their area," she said.

Professor Daniels said: "Getting kids outside, splashing around, collecting tadpoles and giving us some information about what they find is valuable for everybody."

Eight rare frog species in SA alone

South Australia alone is known to have 26 frog species — eight of them considered rare, vulnerable or endangered.

State Environment Minister Ian Hunter said data could help influence future environmental policy.

"If hundreds and hundreds of people actually flood us with this data, we can get so much more information than we could by a regular scientific research program," he said.

"The data is going to be so rigorous that we can actually use it for our state of the environment reports."

Mr Hunter said the presence of frogs could be an important indicator of environmental health.

"We can monitor increasing or decreasing frog populations over a period of time, also watch out for invasive species," he said.

"If we're very, very lucky we might actually find some new frog species identified by this citizen science.
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Re: FrogSpotter App

Postby maddog » Thu 05 May, 2016 6:18 pm

'State Environmental Minister Ian Hunter said data could help influence future environmental policy...Mr Hunter said the presence of frogs could be an important indicator of environmental health'

Well up my way frogs are commonly found in toilets. In Sydney, industrial wastelands. It seems likely that polluted water is providing frogs with protection against fungal attack. So let's hope that frog data does not influence future environmental policy :)
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Re: FrogSpotter App

Postby maddog » Sat 07 May, 2016 12:27 pm

Further contradicting the SA Environment Minister's statement that 'frogs could be an important indicator of environmental health', a study of frogs and their sensitivity to environmental contaminants found that frogs make poor canaries. The study as published in Ecology Letters, and reported in Nature, concludes:

'Overall, we found that amphibians only exhibit moderate relative responses to water-borne toxins. Our findings imply that, as far as chemical contaminants are concerned, amphibians are not particularly sensitive and might more aptly be described as ‘miners in a coal mine’.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

It seems a fair question to ask what / whom informs our politicians and in particular our Environment Ministers as they set policy? Compared with the Canadian PM, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that our standards are unreasonably low - science informed largely by popular sentiment and the wisdom of environmental activists and their pamphlets.
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Re: FrogSpotter App

Postby Overlandman » Tue 05 Nov, 2019 3:30 pm

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