You can become a frog watcher and learn to identify local frogs and toads by their calls.

Frog watchers will also learn about the local frogs’ and toads’ habitats while collecting data for conservation reasons.

The new Minot Chapter of FrogWatch USA is looking for volunteers to collect data on local frogs and toads.

Volunteers will be required to take two classes to learn how to identify the frogs and toads by their calls. The classes are set for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 24, and again Thursday, April 9, at the Minot Roosevelt Park Zoo Visitors Center.

“There is no registration fee or anything just plan to show up,” said Staci Kenney, executive director of the Minot Zoo Crew.

“All ages are encouraged to come. It’s a great way for parents and kids to get out together during the summer,” said Mitch Thompson, co-coordinator of FrogWatch USA Minot Chapter.

Kenney said it’s also a great way to get kids interested in conservation.

Thompson, also zookeeper at the Minot zoo, is co-coordinator of the FrogWatch USA Minot Chapter, with Joe Super, a Minot High School biology teacher.

“We will also be doing group outings during the summer,” Thompson said.

FrogWatch USA, a citizen science program of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, is quite new to the region, Thompson said. He said North Dakota has only four chapters in Grand Forks, Fargo and Bismarck and now Minot.

“It uses citizen volunteers to collect data which helps people engage in their environment,” Thompson said.

“We go out and listen to the frogs calling and then we record what types of frogs are out there and how much they were calling,” he said. He said the recording is done in writing.

The information then is submitted online at the AZA’s FrogWatch website. “You can see (online) where frogs are located, how often you might hear them, what times of the year and you can look up all over the country to see what types of frogs are where.” The data is collected through August.

Thompson attended a training session in Fargo two years ago for people who were interested in starting a FrogWatch chapter. He was a frog watcher last year when the Minot Chapter was started with zoo staff and Zoo Crew board members. Now the chapter is being opened to the public.

“Frogs are kind of the canary in the coal mine,” Thompson said. “They’re an indicator for how healthy the environment is. If we start to see a trend where we’re seeing fewer and fewer frogs in an area we might know that either habitat is being destroyed, there’s pollutants in the area or people are just creeping too much into an area. It really tells a lot about how healthy an environment is.”

In this area, he said, “We’re getting a lot more traffic, we’re getting a lot more people so we’re kind of getting a head start on the data to be able to see if we were to have any decline,” Thompson said.

The frogs and toads in this area are:

Wood frog.

Northern leopard frog.

Cope’s gray tree frog.

Boreal chorus frog.

Plains spadefoot toad.

American toad.

Canadian toad or Dakota toad.

Woodhouse’s Toad.

Great Plains Toad.

The Boreal chorus frog or the Northern leopard frog probably are the most prevalent in this area, Thompson said. “You usually see the Northern leopard frog but the other ones you’ll hear at night if you start listening to them. So when you go out you won’t see them and you won’t go out with a flashlight or anything like that and try and find them, but you’ll hear them and know that they’re out there.”

Compared to other parts of the country, Thompson said North Dakota doesn’t have many different species which makes it easy to get out and identify them.

In the classes, Thompson said people will be trained how to distinguish the frog and toad calls. “You’ll have a lot of practice,” he said. “We’ll give you the resources to be able to go home and practice listening to them as well so you can identify them.”

There also is a test for the class. “But we do it as a group,” he said.

Outings will also be planned, typically out of town.

But the outings might also be close, like at the fairgrounds pond stocked for fishing “anywhere that there’s water. If there’s a ditch or if somebody has a sprinkler system in their yard and it’s always wet, they’ll probably have frogs there too,” Thompson said.

Thompson said they hear frogs at the zoo in some of the smaller ponds. “Deadloops in the park might also be a place to hear frogs and toads.” He said where there’s a lot of noise, like traffic, the frogs tend to quiet down.

“The important part is you’re actually training to listen to the different frogs so you want to make sure you’re reporting on the right thing, otherwise it would end up skewing everything,” Kenney said.

More information about the training classes will be on the Roosevelt Park Zoo website at rpz.com or call the zoo office at 857-4166. The AZA FrogWatch website at aza.org/frogwatch/ also has information about FrogWatch.