Amphibian Monitoring Project

The Coastal Tailed Frog (Ascaphus trueii) is listed as Special Concern by the Federal Species At Risk Act (SARA). There are no official government records of the species on Gambier Island, and their habitat is threatened by planned logging of old forest habitat in the headwaters of Whispering Creek.

To tickle human hearts with a picture, here’s a Coastal Tailed Frog Tadpole in Mannon Creek;
Notice the suction cup mouth evolved to hang on in the fast current, and probably scrape food from the rock surface.
The only frog known, we believe, to rear as tadpoles in streams.

Photo Credit: Mike Stamford

This past summer (2022), university students, Samantha Wing and Sylvia Ascher, launched a continuation of a project to determine the presence and distribution of the Coastal Tailed Frog on the Island by eDNA testing in 9 creeks.

The project was funded by the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, the Islands Trust Conservancy, the Howe Sound Biosphere Region Society. Conservancy director, Mike Stamford, provided in-kind support by leading the project.

Two Archaeological / Cultural / Environmental (ACE) field technicians from the Squamish Nation participated in some of the creek sampling. A project report was released at the end of April this year.

The eDNA results from 52 sample sites distributed among nine streams detected the Coastal Tailed Frog eDNA in 64% of sites, and these positive detections were clustered within five streams. Negative results were clustered within four streams.

There was a Coastal Tailed Frog tadpole sighting in Mannon Creek.

For more details on the project please see the information from the ÁTL’KA7TSEM / HOWE SOUND Biosphere Region

Training Day

Sylvia and Samantha, picutred here with Mike Stamford, are both undergraduate students now with strong interests in conservation work. Sylvia graduated from Erasmus University in June 2022 with a bachelor's degree in Neuroscience and Sustainability, and Samantha will be graduating from McGill University in May 2023 with a bachelor's degree in Cognitive Science and Environmental Science. 

Photo Credit: Peter Scholefield

First Phase (Distribution)

By the end of the summer, 60 eDNA samples had been collected from 34 sites distributed among nine creeks