Earth Protect Blog

Source ABC, October 29, 2008
Frogs and salamanders are disappearing in Yellowstone National Park and researchers at Stanford blame their decline on global warming. These amphibious indicators of the environment are the kind of discovery that, for a Ph.D. candidate, can be the makings of a career. So, it says quite a bit when Sarah McMenamin of Stanford University says she would give it all up for a different result.

"I was always of two minds when I kept coming with these results. It's exciting because it's going to be a paper with a large impact. But on the other hand this, this is frightening," said McMenamin.

Sarah spent three summers in Yellowstone Park studying common frogs and a species of salamander. She compared their numbers with a study done in the early 1990's and found significant declines in the amounts of water, hatching eggs and populations. These are all a direct result, not of short-term weather, but long-term climate change.

article continues: http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/environment&id=6475996