News Release

US Forest Service
Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit 
35 College Drive
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
Public Affairs (530) 543-2627
Fax: (530) 543-2743

Date: October 3, 2008
Contact: Public Affairs, Cheva Heck (530) 543-2608 or Rex Norman (530) 543-2627

Forest Service Begins Yellow-Legged Frog Habitat Restoration

South Lake Tahoe, CA. --The Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit has begun implementing a project to restore Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frog habitat in the Desolation Wilderness by removing brook and rainbow trout from seven high mountain lakes.

Forest Service staff began setting gillnets this week in Ralston, Cagwin and Tamarack lakes. They will leave the nets in place over the winter and revisit them the following field season. Field crews will use backpack electroshockers to remove fish from connecting streams.

Visitors to these lakes should be careful of the nets if they choose to swim and keep dogs leashed to ensure they do not enter the water and become entangled.

Over the next ten years, the Forest Service also will treat Margery, Lucille, Le Conte and Jabu lakes and associated ponds and streams (to the nearest upstream and downstream fish barrier). The proposed lakes were selected due to their proximity to current populations of the frogs, which are under consideration for Endangered Species Act listing.

Prior to the 1950s, alpine lakes in the Desolation Wilderness were fishless and supported viable frog populations. Predation by introduced non-native fish is the best documented reason for the elimination of the frogs from more than 90 percent of their native habitat.

Research supports the recovery of frog populations after fish removal. The neighboring Eldorado National Forest has a substantial source population of frogs and began removing fish from three lakes last year. Based on previous studies, Forest Service biologists believe that frogs from the Eldorado will move into newly restored habitat in the LTBMU portion of the Desolation.

Although the project will result in the loss of fishing opportunities in the seven proposed lakes, other lakes in Desolation Wilderness have been identified as recreational fishing lakes and will be stocked in the future by California Department of Fish and Game.

More information is available on the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit website at www.fs.fed.us/r5/ltbmu/projects.

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