Cascades frogs occur throughout the Cascades Mountains of Washington, Oregon, and into Northern California. While still considered relatively common in Washington and Oregon, Cascades frog is a candidate species under the California Endangered Species Act due to declining populations from a variety of threats. Since 2018, we have been intensively monitoring one of the few remaining robust populations in the Southern Cascades. In our time monitoring, this population has experienced variable climatic conditions, including record-setting droughts. Our intensive data collection has allowed us to develop and implement various conservation actions to help this population persist on the landscape, including targeted meadow restoration to improve breeding conditions and summer refugia. Targeted meadow restoration has been extremely successful for this population, and we hope what we’ve learned can be extrapolated to other at-risk species.

Bennie is the Wildlife Biologist for Collins Pine Company, a small private timber company with forest land in California and Oregon. She has been with the company for over 10 years, and her work includes surveying for special status species, habitat enhancement projects, CEQA and FSC compliance, and collaborating with partners on restoration and research projects.