Amphibian Monitoring

Identifying the distribution of species at-risk is a key step in ensuring amphibian species’ protection. Presence and distribution data indicate habitat that needs protecting, as well as direct monitoring efforts for populations. The Coastal Tailed Frog (Ascaphus trueii) is listed as Special Concern by the Federal Species At Risk Act (SARA) and there were no official government records of the species on Gambier Island, until now.

Over the last five years, Directors Mike and Sam along with many other collaborators and funders, have conducted eDNA sampling in nine creeks across the island, replicating these results in several of them, to have comprehensive data of the presence and distribution of Coastal Tailed Frogs on Gambier Island. In summer 2023, the project team went to some of the areas that had results of CTF presence from the prior two years of eDNA sampling, and with permits, searched for CTF tadpoles through light touch rubble rousing. This allowed for quantitative evidence of Coastal Tailed Frogs in Mannion, Whispering and McDonald Creeks, with the highest number of tadpoles observed in Mannion Creek. It is hypothesized that CTF natal areas are in the upper reaches of the creeks on Gambier, and it is a question to explore more how much CTF adults move between watersheds, with the headwaters of Mannion and Andys Bay and Mannion and Whispering Creeks in particular being fragmented habitat due to logging activity. Tadpoles require stable functional streams for survival and live for up to four years in the creek before adult stage. And adults require large forested riparian areas for survival and dispersal. We must protect these critical habitats!

Light touch rubble rousing has not been completed in Gambier Creek, which did test positive for CTF eDNA. In 2025 with support from the Islands Trust Conservancy, the project team was able to replicate past eDNA sample sites and add new ones to fill data gaps and capture a better picture of the distribution of CTF on Gambier. Stay tuned for these results!

This research is beginning to inform the conservation status for CTF and has the potential to expand the known species range in BC. For more information on this project and its background and findings, see past reports linked below.

Resources & Other Materials:

Chá7elkwnech (Gambier Island) Coastal Tailed Frog: the distribution of eDNA and natal areas among streams: Final Report Spring 2024.

April 2023 Report - field summary & preliminary results from 2022 season

January 2023 Update

COSEWIC Assessment and Status Report on the Coastal Tailed Frog

i - Friele & Clague, 2002, ii - Meidinger & Pojar, 1991, iii - e.g. Doyle and Yadao 1999; Gayton and Almuedo 2012; Oliver et al. 2015. iv - Harding and McCallum 1994; Cannings and Cannings 1996, v - BC Conservation Data Center, 2020, vi - Abney et al., 2019, vii - e.g. Doyle and Yadao 1999, viii - Environment and Climate Change 2016

Interested in streamkeeping? Contact gambierconservancy@gmail.com.