Heber City’s tiniest neighbor is on the state’s conservation species list

Paula Trater has been studying Heber City’s smallest neighbor since 1992. The Columbia spotted frog, she said, deserves the attention. 

As a self-proclaimed “frog lady,” Trater has been surveying the Columbia spotted frog in the Wasatch Back even before the Jordanelle Dam was built. From 1994 until about 2012, Trater counted her small, slippery amphibious friends every spring. Now she is a biological technician for the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission. 

It was love at first survey for Trater. 

“To know a frog is to love a frog,” she said simply. 

With a great deal of emotion, Trater tenderly described the Columbia spotted frog. With their beefy “Popeye-like” biceps, she said it’s easy to tell the males from the females, which have longer, thinner fingers. The females are generally larger than the standard 2 to 2.5 inches. Trater said they’ll have a yellow or salmon-ish underside in contrast to their darker, slightly spotted back. 

“They’re very well camouflaged. They usually just hang out with the two little eyeballs sticking out above the surface of the pond,” Trater said. 

The Columbia spotted frog is a fan of beaver ponds, depending on the time of year. Over the winter, they can hibernate in the dams or muck underneath as long as water is flowing. In spring, the frogs tend to go to the edges of the ponds. When the males find a spot they like, they’ll call out to lure in a willing mate. 

“You need, you know, like a floodplain — a dynamic riparian area where the habitat is constantly changing for the frog to really be able to find the best-suited spots,” Trater said. “They’re harder to find in the summer, and then in the fall when the tadpoles morph out into the young of the year, they will follow little channels, and you’ll even see them in ditches and creeks.”

The Columbia spotted frog found its perfect habitat in the environment before the Jordanelle Dam was built and now in places like the North Fields of Heber City and south of the Jordanelle Reservoir. There’s a significant water table in the North Fields and plenty of ditches and channels for frogs to make their way through. Trater said the Columbia spotted frog shares its home there with other amphibians like the chorus frog. 

“You can hear those a mile away,” Trater said. 

“People used to think they were everywhere. They are getting harder and harder to find,” Trater said. 

Studying frogs

Kaitlyn Purington is a native aquatics biologist for the central region of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Her department monitors amphibians and how their numbers change over time. Because they are on the conservation species list, Purington did not release specific data about Columbia spotted frog numbers or their habitat locations. 

The middle Provo — from Jordanelle down to the Deer Creek area — is approximately where Purington surveys most often. 

“We know that spotted frogs will probably exist outside of the areas that we are surveying, but we have identified selection sites there that we can use this kind of general idea of the overall population within that area,” Purington said. 

They do so every two years. 

Her team conducts what’s called visual encounter surveys, in which up to eight people visit water bodies in the area to identify egg masses. That’s largely what Purington and her team look for, though they will also make observations of adult frogs. The masses are often laid in shallower water with direct exposure to sunlight. So, not typically under cover. 

Each egg mass means the team can make an assumption of two frogs per egg mass. It all takes place during breeding season, when they can track growth and how many new eggs are laid, Purington said. They stop their surveying when they no longer see new masses being laid. 

“Historically, within the last about 15 years or so, we have seen a decrease in egg mass production,” Purington said, adding that not all of the data has been analyzed for this year. “But we did see a strong amount of breeding this year, so I’m hopeful that we will be a little bit further above what we were back in 2022.” 

Changes in population can come from a variety of factors, according to Purington. Development could play a role. 

There are two roads if development is occurring specifically on wetland properties. If individuals have private land with a private pond they decide to get rid of — that kind of situation could impact amphibians. Then, there’s city-wide development. 

As development impacts historic reading sites or as the population in the Heber Valley increases, the increased need for water could impact the sensitive species in the area, Purington said. 

“It definitely could have an impact on their population,” she said, adding that natural impacts like non-native fungi could make a difference as well. “There could be kind of a multitude of effects that are causing this decline that we’ve been seeing, but I do not believe that development makes it better for them.”

A changing valley

When Jordanelle Dam construction finished in 1993, Trater had just begun surveying Columbia spotted frogs. 

“Because they knew the dam was coming, they relocated several populations,” Trater explained, adding that egg masses were relocated further south and below the dam. “After the dam was constructed, there were still many eggs left up in the area that became flooded, and the poor frogs just became fish food.”

Today, there are still pockets of Columbia spotted frog habitats above the dam, and the population in the Heber Valley is most stable, she said. 

But, as Purington said, development has a chance of impacting any habitat. 

The Heber Valley has seen continual growth with more on the way. In May, the Military Installation Development Authority said it would add 6,000 new residential units to northern Wasatch County. Plans to develop The Slope — a luxury community to be set alongside the Provo River and north of Heber City — are also in the works. 

In December, the Utah Department of Transportation will announce the chosen route alternative for the U.S. Highway 40 bypass road, which aims to reduce traffic on Main Street in Heber City. 

As part of the project, UDOT is conducting an Environmental Impact Statement to analyze potential impacts of the bypass route. Both Alternative A and Alternative B are free-flow variations of a bypass route. Alternative A sticks to U.S. 40 from Potter Lane to 900 North. Alternative B cuts through the notoriously wet and marshy North Fields. 

According to UDOT Region Three Project Manager Craig Hancock, the environmental review process includes consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to obtain a list of threatened, endangered or candidate species that might occur in the evaluation area or be affected by the bypass alternatives. 

“UDOT then evaluated whether there is any potentially suitable habitat present in the evaluation area for each species and if that might be affected by the action alternatives,” Hancock said. 

In the process, UDOT identified a potentially suitable habitat for Ute ladies’-tresses — a flowering plant federally listed as threatened — within 300 feet of the evaluation area and conducted surveys for the plant during its flowering season.

But because the Columbia spotted frog is listed as a conservation species and not an endangered species, no surveys have been conducted for the amphibian. 

“Potential impacts to aquatic resources will be avoided and minimized as much as possible during the design process,” Hancock said. “For impacts to aquatic resources that cannot be avoided, UDOT will prioritize establishing mitigation sites in the North Fields where possible, which would help protect a variety of plant and animal habitats in perpetuity.” 

Conservation species

A conservation species in Utah is any native animal or plant facing a significant risk of extinction or is of concern with conservation efforts. The Columbia spotted frog is just one of many on the list of Utah’s species of greatest conservation need. 

There are also birds like the California condor and black rosy-finch, fish like the Bear Lake whitefish, insects like the monarch butterfly, and mammals like the gray wolf or American pika.

In 1998, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources entered into a conservation agreement with agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission to ensure the “long-term persistence” of the Columbia spotted frog within its historic range and support statewide conservation efforts. 

The Columbia spotted frog was petitioned under the Endangered Species Act in 1989, when it was listed as a priority for the Wasatch Front and West Desert populations. Now the frog is classified as a conservation species. 

Trater said the classification of “endangered” or “conservation” species is not black and white. While conservation species is slightly different from a threatened or endangered species on a federal level, Trater said it’s still a species to watch to ensure it does not become endangered. 

“It’s a subjective thing,” Trater said. “I’ve interviewed some of the old timers in the valley, and they’ve got great stories about the pond out in the back 40 just shimmering with eggs … I mean, if we find 20 or 30 egg masses in one big cluster we’re thinking ‘Oh! Motherload.’” 

But compared to the “old days,” the frogs are no longer so easy to find. That is why she began surveying efforts, she said. 

Amphibious indicators

According to Purington, amphibians are what’s known as an indicator species. She said that for all amphibians, seeing a decline is a first indicator test to understand what’s broadly going on within the environment. 

“You know, they live in the water. They’re also within terrestrial environments, and when those start to degrade, we often see amphibians as one of the first species to go just because they have such sensitive biologies,” Purington said. “They really rely on good, quality water, consistent water, but they also do rely on that habitat quality around them.”

Like Trater, who considers frogs part of her family, Purington said the Columbia spotted frog and all other amphibians are worth knowing about. 

“It’s definitely something to think about as we’re recreating or as we are entering into these spacious spaces with these sensitive species,” Purington said.

The biology is not often understood, she said. Besides development, Purington said that running through ponds or messing with breeding grounds is risky and could disrupt those amphibious populations. Learning about animals like the Columbia spotted frog and other amphibians is the first way to help protect these species. 

“It’s definitely something to care about,” Purington said.

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