Agile Frog Project

Distributed widely throughout much of southern and central Europe, the agile frog is found in only a few northern locations including Jersey - it is not found anywhere else in the British Isles. The Jersey population of the agile frog has been declining in both range and numbers since the early 1900's. In the 1970's only seven localities were listed where the frog could still be found, and by the mid 1980's this had dropped to only two sites. In 1987 one of the remaining two populations was lost as a result of a lethal spill of agricultural pesticide into the breeding pond. The species is now therefore believed to be confined to a single fragile population in the south-west of the Island, although attempts have since been made to reintroduce it to a second site.

A collaborative programme, initiated in the late 1980's, incorporating captive-breeding, reintroduction and habitat management, and involving the States of Jersey Environment Division, Herpetology Department of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (now Durrell), the Société Jersiaise Zoology Section and other interested individuals has sought to arrest this potentially terminal decline in wild frog numbers.

Despite the efforts of these organisations, the future of Jersey's agile frog is still far from secure. The factors which have played a key role in the frogs decline are still very much in evidence:

• Water quality, as a result of intensive agriculture is still below EC standards in many areas;

• The continuing alteration, disturbance and loss of potentially suitable amphibian habitat;

• The growing numbers of predatory feral cats, polecats and ducks;

These factors have combined to reduce the frog population to the critical state at which it exists today.

In the face of intensifying threats, the need for a concerted, co-ordinated conservation effort became acute. In 2001 an Agile Frog Species Action Plan was produced. This Action Plan has set a number of objectives for the conservation programme; documents the historical decline of the species; identifies the current major threats to its survival; summarises the current action being undertaken to conserve the species and, most importantly, defines the action required in the future to return the species to ‘Favourable Conservation Status'.

During the 2007 frog breeding season, a total of 18 spawn clumps were laid in the wild, 12 of which were taken to Durrell to be ‘headstarted'. Here the vulnerable spawn and tadpoles are safe from predators such as newts and ducks, and once the tadpoles have begun to metamorphose into froglets they will be released back into the wild.