6 February 1996

Dear DAPTF Central Division Members:

A lot has happened since my letter in August. As you may recall, I was planning to attend the second annual meeting of the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program in Burlington, Canada. At that meeting we drafted five protocols for statistically defensible amphibian monitoring: Terrestrial Salamander Surveys, Anuran Calling Surveys, Aquatic Surveys, Western Surveys, and Amphibian Atlasing. These protocols were to form the basis of an amphibian monitoring plan to be administered by the National Biological Service (NBS) and DAPTF members starting this year. After the meetings, comments were solicited from the herpetological community by posting the protocols on the NBS World Wide Web Site. In addition, monitoring specialists were contacted directly for their comments. Several meeting participants also re-worked the draft protocols into an NSF proposal which was submitted in November.

We originally thought that the revised protocols would be ready for more general DAPTF distribution and comment by early December but unforeseen problems (including the government shutdowns) delayed release of the revised versions. Of the five monitoring protocols, calling amphibian surveys are the closest to implementation. The other areas require more pilot work before implementation can begin. Unfortunately, this delay does not leave us enough time to meet and discuss the protocols before the field season begins. Therefore, I see no reason to attempt a hurried Winter meeting and risk having foul weather limit attendance. I suggest that we take the entire field season to look over the protocols and meet in the Fall to discuss our comments and concerns. We will also know more about NSF funding at that time. I have contacted Ralph Grundel about the possibility of once again holding a Fall meeting at Indiana Dunes National Seashore. I am suggesting the weekend of September 14. If there are serious objections to this plan, please contact me.

If you cannot access the NAAMP protocols on the NBS WWW Site, please contact me and I will gladly send you a set. I encourage everyone in the Central Division to review and comment on the protocols.

In the interim, I would like to encourage individual members or state groups to begin assembling teams that will ultimately implement these protocols. In some geographic areas it won't be possible to implement the protocols solely with DAPTF members. Volunteers will be needed and may play an important role in some of these surveys. There's no reason to wait until the protocols are in final form to develop a volunteer base.

Because the calling-amphibian protocols are closest to implementation, I would like to bring up a few issues concerning these surveys. Sam Droege of NBS recently sent E-mail or FAX to some agency officials (e.g. Illinois DNR Natural Heritage biologists) offering a wide range of logistic support for any State or Province wishing to start or enhance an anuran calling program. He chose agency people because in most States they are currently running or have formerly run calling surveys. Sam stressed that no group currently running a calling program should feel pressured into adopting the NAAMP protocols. The offer should be viewed as an attempt help standardize calling surveys throughout North America--something that I think we all agree is very important. The key to making this work is to realize that it doesn't have to happen overnight. Standard protocols (e.g. the NAAMP protocols) can be phased in over several years but it will take cooperation to make it a smooth transition.

Finally, if you have an E-mail address and haven't sent it to me, please do so. Currently, I have only about 50 E-mail addresses (out of more than 250 members) so I know there are more of you out there that are connected. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Christopher A. Phillips
Assistant Research Scientist
DAPTF Central Division Coordinator
chrisp@mail.inhs.uiuc.edu