I have been helping frogs for years and am very glad to share some super simple things you can do to help out as well. You don’t have to join an association or invest a ton of time or money to play your part in frog conservation.
As a general rule, you can help with frog conservation by having a frog-friendly backyard, avoiding the use of chemicals, reporting disease cases, and supporting the health of natural environments in your community. The largest threats to frogs include urbanization, disease, pollution, and roads.
Frogs are absolutely awesome but they are also generally endangered due to our own activity. But you can help! Although frog conservation may sound like an ambitious goal, it is not impossible. All it takes is a little creativity at different levels of your community, starting with your own backyard.
1. How To Help Frogs in Your Backyard
Thankfully, helping frogs is much easier when you can take a hands-on approach in your immediate vicinity. Caring for frogs in your yard is quite simple, as they primarily look after themselves and only need an adapted and safe environment to thrive.
Save Frogs That Fall into Your Pool With a FrogLog
Frogs and toads often fall into pools by accident and a very simple way to greatly increase their chances of survival is to add a FrogLog to your pool.
FrogLog Escape Ramp for Critters in Pools
- Save Frogs & Small Animals
- Easy Setup
- Simple Design
- Keep Water Clean
Without a way to escape, frogs typically end up dying due to temperature shock, chlorine exposure, and the inability to find a way out of the pool.
FrogLogs were invented by a Wildlife Biologist who was seeking a way to easily save frogs that fall into pools.
Adding a few FrogLogs to your pool is a quick and easy win to help with local frog conservation in your backyard.
Make Your Yard Frog or Toad Friendly
One of the easiest and best ways to help with frog conservation is by creating a frog sanctuary in your own backyard.
- Frogs need a steady source of water so making a frog pond is the best way to attract them and help them thrive.
- Tree frogs require trees and water, so if you create a frog pond near trees, you may be able to attract local tree frogs.
- Toads require land close to their breeding ground (body of water). If your home is in an area with toads, you can make them feel at home by making your garden the perfect place for toads to thrive. You could also make a hibernaculum for the Winter.
Click on the links above to see the full guides on our site to learn how to make your yard frog and toad friendly and attract them to your yard.
Help Your Local Toads Hibernate in The Winter
A toad hibernaculum, hibernacula, or hibernating is a place where toads can safely spend the Winter. You can easily create a hibernaculum to help local toads survive winter in your yard and garden by creating the ideal habitat for them to spend the cold season.
Here is how to create a toad hibernaculum in your yard:
- Chose a safe location in your yard
- Dig a hole that is at least 1 meter or 3 feet deep
- Fill the hole with soft sand
- Cover the hole with leaf litter and compost soil
You could also create a toad hibernaculum in a window well if it has the correct environment. In that article, I explain what I did for my toad in a window well. I got to watch it emerge, prepare and head into hibernation every year.
Keep Your Pets Away
An important tip to help in frog and toad conservation is to keep your pets away from them. Not only can your pets be a problem for the frogs, frogs can be a problem for your pets. Your pets are predators that may play with frogs or eat them. If this happens, your pet could get very sick. So it’s best to create a dedicated area in your yard for pets that is separated from the area dedicated to frogs if you have cats or dogs notably.
Educate Your Children on Best Frog Handling Practices
Educating future generations is super important for successful frog conservation and starting with your children is a great place to begin. Go out and look for frogs in nature with your children and show them how wonderful this species is.
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Teach them about best practices for safely catching and holding frogs. And have them participate with you and setting up a frog conservation area in your backyard. These fun activities can not only form a stronger bond between you and your children, but also be an excellent way to help with frog conservation.
Plant Native Foilage And Let Your Lawn Breathe
Although manicured lawns can look great, they do not necessarily support as much wildlife as flourishing plants would. As a result, having a manicured lawn around your property will greatly reduce the number of bugs and insects that roam the area, reducing the availability of food sources for frogs.
You don’t have to remove your lawn completely or entirely neglect it, but you can plant more native plants in your garden. Frogs will not feed on these plants, so you won’t need to worry about your precious plants being damaged. The primary benefit is that plants attract a wide range of bugs, insects, and even grubs, making delectable meals for frogs.
Avoid Pesticides
While using pesticides does offer quite a few benefits around the garden, they are not great for frog health (or your health). Herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides can easily cause illness, deformity, and even fatality in frogs. They can also harm the environment and cut out food sources for frogs, so try and opt for organic gardening practices instead. Using a compost can also be very beneficial to attracting insects, frogs and a flourishing garden.
Provide Shelter
Frogs need shelter to protect themselves from harsh weather and predators in the area. They don’t need much to shield themselves from potential danger. Dense shrubs, ferns, native wildflowers, groundcover, piles of leaves, rocks on moist soil and plant beds should be sufficient.
Water is Key
Other than food and decent habitats, water is the most important thing that frogs need for survival. They need clean standing or gently moving water topped with natural vegetation to breed and lay their eggs. If you don’t have a pond, you could make use of a large ground-level birdbath that has a slope so they can easily exit.
2. How To Help Frogs in Your City
Making a positive change in your city will primarily involve some initiative and networking. You can make small changes where possible, but the mission will be far more successful if your neighbors are on board.
Protect Your Local Wetlands And Forests
Local natural areas within the city should be protected as much as possible, such as wetlands, grasslands, forests, and ponds. These ‘backyard habitats’ are incredibly important for the well-being of countless frog species, and they will likely suffer if these areas are tampered with or industrialized.
You may think it’s hard to do but some people have found very creative ways to ensure the survival of their local forests. For example, in Quebec, a group of 185 neighbours pooled their money to buy a forest out from local promoters who were planning on cutting it down to build over 30 homes (source).
Get Help From Your City
Some cities have local conservation areas and if you think yours should too then you may want to start a petition or get together with neighbours. There is a beautiful marsh near where I live and I love to visit it and see the frogs there.
In the Eastern Townships Quebec, there is an amphibian passage allowing frogs and toads to cross roads without any harm. Before creating the passage 91% of frogs would die trying to cross the road.
Next to no frogs have died since the passage was created in the year 2000 (source). Although many people thought the idea was rediculous when it was proposed by a local association, this very simple solution has saved hundreds and thourands of frogs since it was implemented in the Eastern Townships (CTNF).
Educate Your Neighbors
The best way to positively affect the health of frogs in your city is to communicate with others and educate those living around you. Of course, not everyone wants to have frogs happily living in their backyards. But, you could encourage others to use organic gardening methods and join local causes to reduce pollution.
3. How To Help Frogs in Your Country
Helping frogs in your country is more of an investment in time, but it can be very rewarding. Every country faces unique challenges concerning the conservation of various frog species and influential aspects. Start by finding out exactly what the largest issue is for frogs in your country and go from there.
For example, the United Kingdom experiences a shocking number of road-related frog fatalities. This primarily has to do with the architecture and infrastructure in the UK, as roads, properties, and buildings disrupt frogs’ migration routes. Their routes are often blocked by fences, highways, buildings, and much more.
The UK has been implementing passages like those discussed above in Quebec.Find out more about how you can help by contacting country, province or state-wide associations in your area. Here are some examples of places you could get involved:
Frog Conservation Association | Website | Location |
FES: Froglife Ecological Services | Froglife.org | UK |
FrogWatch USA | Aza.org | USA |
Canadian Herptalogical Society | Canadianherpetology.ca | Canada |
Taronga | Taronga.org.au | Australia |
Become a Patroller
You could become a patroller, which involves monitoring typical frog routes, putting up road signs to warn drivers, and building tunnels under roads for frogs to use. Some programs accept volunteers as well, who can help amphibians cross roads safely. Some of the abovementioned associations help organize such initiatives.
Report Diseases
Any ill of deceased frogs should be reported to the appropriate Wildlife department in your jurisdiction, as this will greatly aid scientists in tracking diseases and preventing outbreaks among frogs. Ranavirus and chytridiomycosis are some of the most dangerous diseases for frogs. Still, many other diseases can spread quickly and cause mass fatality within various frog species groups.
You can report frog diseases or deaths to the correct entity listed in this article on our blog.
Form or Support Local Movements
In some cases, you may need to try and find individuals higher up on the ladder in your country to make a difference. With enough support from local communities and civilians, those regulating laws and rules in the area may just start to pay attention and devise strategies for conserving frog species.
4. How To Help Frogs Around The World
While all countries have unique hurdles to face, the biggest threats that most frog species face are pollution of various types, disease, and overall loss of habitat. Despite differences between geographical locations, these issues have proven to be fairly widespread on a global scale.
Thankfully, there are quite a few projects, organizations, and volunteer groups devoted to conserving frog life, protecting their habitats, and sheltering them from the threats of the modern world. Find out more about the different organizations, what they do to help frogs, and how you can support them in their mission.
Here are some international frog conservation groups you may be interested in:
Frog Conservation Association | Website | Location |
ASA: Amphibian Survival Alliance | amphibians.org | International |
Australian Museum | Australian Museum | Australia |
Carry out your own due diligence before joining.
More About Helping Frogs
It’s unbelievably shocking to fathom just how many frogs die every year for ridiculous reasons. But, making a positive change is still possible with the right approaches, dedication, and perseverance. If enough people share this vision, we can create a world where frogs and many other species are happy, healthy, and safe.
Help frogs in your location by doing some of the following things:
- Create a Frog Pond
- Create a Toad House
- Attract Frogs to Your Yard
- Attract Toads to Your Garden
- Adopt a Wild Pet Frog or Toad
Common Questions About Frog Conservation
How can I help frogs in my garden? As a general rule, you can help frogs in your garden by keeping predators away, adding a compost to attract bugs, adding shelter with piles of logs, weeds and shrubs, and by adding a source of water. Gardens generallya attract toads that can be a natural way to kill pests.
What are scientists doing to help frogs? Scientists are playing their part in frog conservation by studying the key impacts frogs have on their ecosystem, the decline of frogs and helping frog conservaiton associations, the media and the general public understand the impacts of human activity on the decline of frog populations.
What can humans do to save frogs? We can help save frogs by starting in our own backyard. Make your yard more frog and toad friendly with water, food and shelter, create a frog pond, do not use pesticides, do not cut the grass so often, keep your pets away, and educate your children on best frog conservation practices.
What can we do to help save amphibians? You can save amphibians at a local, country and international level depending on how involved in the cause you would like to be. Start with your own backyard by creating a frog-friendly environment.