Bisle Frog watch Creates Awareness about Frogs
Bisle Frog watch is a citizen science initiative, organised every year since 2012 by Gubbi Labs, Bisle Kappe Team and Kudremukh Wildlife foundation to create awareness about frogs. This year the event was held from 10th to 12th of June with 20 participants across the state actively taking part in the frog watch. The resource persons for the event were Dr Gururaja KV renowned Batrachologist (Frog researcher), Dr.Sudhira HS and Ramya Badrinath from Gubbi labs, Bangalore. This year the team was led by Vineeth Kumar K, Frog researcher from Mangalore University, Rohit S Rao, Managing Trustee Kudremukh Wildlife Foundation and Godwin D’Souza, a Nature enthusiast.
Participants of the Frogwatch were from varied backgrounds, including students, professionals in different fields, researchers, and senior citizens. The Frog watch was first started by Deepika Prasad and Vivek GM in the year 2012, with an intention to create awareness about frogs and to document frogs around Bisle. In the first Frogwatch team had recorded 14 species of frogs and every year new species gets added to the list and this year the team recorded total 26 species of Frogs.
Frogwatch had both Classroom and Field sessions, which were highly interactive and informal. The participants learnt how to identify some of the common species of frogs, acoustic communication in frogs and also breeding behaviour in some species of frogs. They also had an insight into the research through few ecological experiments, where they measured the size, weight of few frogs along with call recording of frogs and analysing it using software. All precautions were taken while handling frogs, to prevent the possible spread of fungal infection in frogs. Now the participants go back and look at frogs in a totally different perspective and help in spreading the message of the importance of frogs in the ecosystem. Some of the frog species recorded during the workshop include Granular Cricket frog, Ornate narrow- mouthed frog, Sholiga Narrow-mouthed frog, Wayanad Bush frog, Glandular bush frog, Coorg yellow bush frog, Malabar Gliding frog, Small tree frog, Kottigehar dancing frog, Bicolored frog and Malabar torrent toad etc.
Dr Gururaja was recently awarded State Biodiversity Award by Karnataka Biodiversity Board for his immense contribution in the field of Amphibian research. He along his team of researchers conducts similar Frog watch events in Honey valley and Mavinagundi every year.
Report by Vineeth Kumar K