Randy Oliver  wrote:

> The above finding does not let atrazine off the hook.  The herbicide
> apparently shifts the algal composition of waters, and suppresses amphibian
> immune systems, allowing parasitic worms to more heavily infest frogs.
> http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2008/10/29-02.html

Randy, the article does not claim leopard frogs are scarce in the atrazine
(or nowadays mostly Roundup herbicide) treated corn fields of Illinois.
Corn farmers are well aware that leopard frogs continue to be abundant
as evidenced by countless thousands that end up crushed by cars as
they hop across farm roads during evening summer thundershowers.
The frogs are easy to find during the daytime too as one walks along
the margins of herbicide treated corn and soybean fields in the upper
Midwest:

Closeup view: http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/frogclose.jpg
Landscape view:
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/froglandscape.jpg

Another frog: http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/frogc.jpg

> I personally documented the slow extinction of a Mountain Yellow-Legged Frog
> population in the Sierra Nevada over a course of yearly surveys that I
> performed.  Very sad to watch a species disappear from an area.

How are Central Valley pesticides, which have been used for 75 years,
reasonably linked to the RECENT disappearance of the	Mountain Yellow-Legged
Frog in the high altitude lakes and ponds of the Sierra Nevada mountains?
According to: http://www.mylfrog.info/threats/contaminants.html
"Die-off of hundreds of mountain yellow-legged frog populations occurred
in areas of the Sierra Nevada that are remote from the Central Valley
and that are subjected to only very low pesticide concentrations."

One point that both the popular and scientific articles consistently fail to
mention is that in the low altitude foothills of the Sierra Nevada and in
and around the orchards and row crops of California's Central Valley some
species of frogs continue to be abundant despite the much greater pesticide
concentrations as compared to the high altitude ponds in the Sierra Nevada.
So abundant that from late Jan. - April the noise of frog's singing in the
evening is almost deafening.

Paul Cherubini
El Dorado, Calif.

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