Save the Frogs is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of the world wide to amphibians die off.
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1:You're listening to k a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM. And this is method to the madness, a show coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex dedicated to exploring the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host Ali Huizar and today we have Dr. Carey Krieger Krieger with us. Thanks for letting me know the pronunciation and thanks for joining us. Yeah, it's great to be on. Thanks for having me. And I'm, Carrie is the founder of save the frogs. So we want to talk about your organization. But first, um, [00:00:30] I always like to start the program off with talking about kind of the problem statement. So someone will start an organization because they see an issue. What's the issue that you saw?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the problem is that frogs and other amphibians are rapidly disappearing around the world. So there's about 7,000 known species of Amphibians, of which at least 2000 of them are threatened with extinction. And a couple of hundred species have gone completely extinct in recent decades. And this is an extinction, uh, [00:01:00] rate several thousand times faster than normal. And when I started save the frog, very few people knew that there was even an issue. So to me this was one of the world's most significant environmental issues, most rapidly disappearing group of vertebrates. And if people don't know that there's a problem, then it's extremely difficult to fix the problem. And Amphibians are extremely important for a variety of reasons. They're eating ticks and mosquitoes and flies that spread bad diseases. We don't want a frogs are very important [00:01:30] in the food chain if they disappear than other animals have problems. A lot of our pharmaceuticals and medical advances come from research on Amphibians. I amphibians are bio indicators. They're sensitive to environmental change. So they're an early warning system of environmental degradation. And also frogs are really cool people like frogs. It's our ethical and moral duty to protect them. So I started save the frogs because there was no nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting amphibians and there was a lot that [00:02:00] needed to get done that was not getting done. Okay. Thanks for, uh, I think that explains the problem pretty well. So, um,
Speaker 1:before we get into that kind of the starting of the organization and what it does. Um, can you tell us a little bit about your back?
Speaker 2:Where, where do you get your education and how did you come to notice this problem? I grew up in Virginia. I grew up on about 20 acres of land when I was seven. My parents built a pond on the property, which has attracted at least seven different species of amphibians. [00:02:30] And I spent a lot of my childhood and a lot of my um, adult time when I visit my parents, going down to the pond and hanging out there and being exposed to frogs and wildlife and just being outdoors. And then in my teens I started hiking and camping a lot. And eventually when I finished college, actually studied mechanical engineering in college, but was never too into that. And I'd never thought of environmental science as a potential career or environmental conservation. And by the [00:03:00] end of college I realized that was a possibility. Started traveling around the world a lot and camping, going to national parks. I really liked being out in the wilderness, but I noticed that there was a lot of environmental destruction all around and I wanted to do something about that. So eventually he went to Australia and spent four years there doing my phd in environmental science, studying the ecology of Kitsch Radio Mycosis, which is an amphibian disease that's causing trouble for amphibians here in California and all around the [00:03:30] world. So I learned all about amphibians when I was in Australia. And also I learned what was not getting done that needed to be getting done to save them.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you're doing your phd in Australia and you're studying an amphibian disease. And then I like to talk about this kind of moment of inspiration, that Sundar bolt that hits and a a, uh, entrepreneur or social entrepreneur like you who decides, Oh wow. You know, I have now seen this issue. I'm going to take the leap. Am I do something about it? Can you describe [00:04:00] for us, when was that, did you have that kind of moment of inspiration?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are probably a couple. Uh, I'll first make it clear. When I was in Australia, I was definitely in the world of academia and it's a lot different than being in nonprofits and not many people who are doing their phd go down the path that I have gone. So before I did my phd between um, college and do my phd, I took many years off and one of the main ways that I supported myself was tutoring, private tutoring, uh, math and chemistry and [00:04:30] a couple of other subjects. So I was essentially working for myself and I really liked working for myself. And during my phd it was very independent research as well. So it was kind of like I was working for myself and I wanted to continue doing that. Also when I was at the University of sell out of bureaucracy. And I also figured that working for government would have at least as much bureaucracy.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to work for myself. And at the end of my first year of doing my phd, even though I'd had very little prior amphibian experience, [00:05:00] I got two large research grants, one from the Epley Foundation for research. And one from the National Geographic Society's Committee for research and exploration. And being that I had, uh, very little experience up to that point and did not even yet have my phd, I figured it must be incredibly easy to raise money to do this kind of work. So even though that was a false belief, I went with that. And eventually when I finished my phd, I was, I was, my original plan [00:05:30] was to continue doing research and to do a postdoc for a couple of years, but I could not think of any postdoc that would be as important as starting a nonprofit. So, uh, I had had the idea for save the frogs in my head for probably four years, but never put too much thought into it.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, about nine months after finishing my phd, the thought just hit me that now's the time I need get a webpage going and you know, at least [00:06:00] get this thing started a little bit. I was not, I did not yet have any full time position from after my phd. So I had time to start doing what I thought needed to get done. Step one was build a website so that other people in the world would find out what the problem is and know that I was out there trying to do something about it. And what I, what was the timeframe for that? When did the webpage get built? Well, I started save the frogs in early 2008. So we've been [00:06:30] around for about six and a half years. So I built a minimal website and then I've always been adding to it. I add to the website, saved the frogs.com, uh, you know, several times a week. So it's now got several hundred pages of um, free, freely accessible information. Okay.
Speaker 1:And we're talking to Dr Kerry Krieger of uh, save the frogs.com here on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. And this is method to the madness. And we are talking about how he started this organization [00:07:00] to save the frog. So let's talk about what saved the frogs does. So that's a little bit of how it got created. You started out with a web page and we'll get a little bit more to where you are today. I actually, I found you because you have a retail store front. I'd love to understand a little bit more about the strategy behind that. But let's talk about what is the focus of save the frogs? How are you going out and trying to execute your, your mission of saving the frogs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're a nonprofit organization. Our mission is to protect amphibian populations and to promote a society that respects and appreciates [00:07:30] nature and wildlife. As I said, uh, back in 2008 for certain, very few people knew that amphibians were in trouble and rapidly disappearing. And for the first 18 months of our existence, all we did was environmental education. So creating free educational materials for download from our website, giving live presentations, inspiring other people to go out into their communities around the world and [00:08:00] educate people about amphibians. So one of the first things that I did was start save the frogs day, save the frogs. Jay has become the world's largest day of, uh, Amphibian Education and conservation action. The first year and saved the frogs. They always takes place for the last Saturday of April, first year that we had it, we had about 40 educational events in 15 countries and I was the only employee of Save the frogs back then.
Speaker 2:Did Not have a much funding at all, but we still got events happening in 15 countries. I thought that sounds like it's [00:08:30] pretty successful program. Let's keep going at it. And uh, since that time, we've had almost a thousand educational events take place in 59 countries. And so what I do is provide education, materials and ideas to people and provide them inspiration so that they will go out into their community, do something beneficial for amphibians that may be giving a presentation to their students or taking people out into, uh, the field to see wild frogs in their native habitats. We've had protests, [00:09:00] we've had rallies, um, 5k events and other things to get the community involved. So that was, um, our main focus in the early days, save frogs was all environmental education. Since then, we've also had, uh, campaigns to get bad pesticides, bands such as atrazine. And, uh, UC Berkeley has a long history of atrazine research.
Speaker 2:Atrazine is one of the most commonly used herbicides on the planet. It's been banned in the European Union since 2004. Uh, it's [00:09:30] produced by the world's largest pesticide companies and Genta who's actually based in Switzerland where it is illegal, but we use about 80 million pounds of this herbicide here in America, primarily on corn. It's an endocrine disruptor that can turn male frogs into females at two and a half parts per billion, most commonly detected pesticide in us groundwater, rainwater and tap water. So we've been working to get that band. We've delivered about 25,000 petition signatures to the U S Environmental Protection Agency. [00:10:00] I've spoken there on several occasions. We've had a rally, a saved the frogs, a rally at the steps of the EPA and anyone who wants to learn more about that, save the frogs.com/. Atrazine A. T. R, a. Z. I. N. E. We've also had campaigns against frog legs. We've gotten frog legs out of about 77 supermarkets and two restaurants gotten dissect frog dissections out of about 18 schools.
Speaker 2:And, uh, we've gotten habitat protected. [00:10:30] We stopped the construction of a 12 story condominium complex that was destined or slated to be built on Fowler's toad habitat in Canada. And, uh, more recently we've gotten into building wetlands. So we started building wetlands at schools and we planned to be continuing that program and, uh, have a goal of building a thousand wetlands over the next 10 years. California, about 90% of our wetlands have been destroyed or modified. So a lot of times when you go [00:11:00] out, um, walking or driving around, you're looking around, you may see dry fields and not even realize that that used to be a wetland. So one of the best ways we can help amphibians is to, um, create habitat for them or fix their old habitats that got drained. Oh, congratulations. Sounds like there's a lot of action that you've, you've generated to save the frogs.
Speaker 2:And, um, but one thing I, when reading your website that struck me was, um, you know, the danger that the frogs are in and, and kind of their place in our ecosystem [00:11:30] gains a little bit about that because I don't think people really understand a critical, they are to the whole kind of, you know, the diversity on, on earth and how long their history is. So how, how much in danger are the frogs? Yeah, I am Fabian's have been around for in more or less their current form for 250 or 300 million years. So all life that's currently on earth is evolved. I'm on a planet that has amphibians. So amphibians are very important in [00:12:00] the food web. As I said before, they're eating flies, ticks, mosquitoes, uh, tadpoles are filtering algae out of the water. Most of us depend on community, um, filtration systems to clean our water.
Speaker 2:So Tadpoles are actually keeping the cost of our water down by doing a lot of that filtration work. And, uh, birds, fish monkey, snakes, even dragon flies and beetles eat frogs, tadpoles and frog eggs. So a lot of animals depend on amphibians and if the amphibians disappear than lots of [00:12:30] other animal groups have trouble. And uh, let's see, I think your question was how threatened are they? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, about 48% of all amphibian species are thought to be on the decline in numbers and about a third of them are already considered threatened with extinction. What threatened with extinction means is that if we don't do anything to mitigate those threats or to remove those threats, then we can expect those species to go completely extinct in the near future. [00:13:00] So that's a couple thousand species that could go extinct and the human population continues to grow. We're the cause of most of the problems that frogs face. And if people don't change their ways, then as the human population continues to grow, these threats will actually increase in the rate of extinction will increase. That's why we need drastic action to save the frogs.
Speaker 1:And, um, another thing that struck me about when I was reading your website, we're talking talking to Dr Kerry Krieger, [00:13:30] the founder of save the frogs and you can check out more@savethefrogs.com. This is KLX Berkeley's method to the madness I'm here installing is, are one thing that struck me when I was reading your website, Carrie was um, that kind of symbiosis between frogs and humans. And specifically you talked about how they can be a leading indicator of major environmental issues because of the, is it the, um,
Speaker 2:well frogs are bio indicators for a few reasons. They have permeable skin. [00:14:00] Their skin is a lot different than ours. Our skins meant to protect us by keeping things out, but amphibians can drink and breathe through their skin. That also means that bad pollution and pesticides can go straight through their skin and everything eventually makes it down to the waterways cause gravity's going to bring all those bad chemicals from factories, from people's houses, from cars down to the water. Even if it went up a smoke stack and went into the clouds, eventually it's going to come down in the form of rain, get into the water bodies where the amphibians live and breed [00:14:30] and they have that permeable skin. So bad pollutants can go straight into their skin. So, uh, that's one reason they're considered bio indicators. Another is they're amphibious. That means they have two lives, one on land and one in water.
Speaker 2:And if something goes wrong in either the terrestrial or aquatic realm, amphibians have trouble. Another problem is that they're slow to move. They can't just fly off like a bird could. If it's forest got chopped down, something happens to the frogs forest or the swamp where it's, it lives, then [00:15:00] it's very slow to move. Uh, it may get run over on roads, picked off by predators, uh, could dry up in the sun. And also a lot of amphibians are just not genetically predisposed to traveling long distances once they're an adult. A lot of them just stick to their pond where they're at.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, um, yeah, it's, it's a really, um, as you said, as the, all the kind of pollutants flowed down into the frogs watching what's happening to them could be a leading indicator of what's going to happen to us. That's another [00:15:30] reason for us to really be worried about their ecosystem. Sure. Humans are
Speaker 2:disconnected from our relationship with the natural world, but we've evolved here. It's only in very, very recent history such as less than 1% of the time that we have existed that we have had modern day conveniences. But everything that we use comes from the natural world. All the minerals, fresh water, clean air, all of our natural resources for clothing [00:16:00] and building homes, all comes from the natural world. If we disturb our ecosystems, then we're going to have serious problems in the future. And you know, we can, we can coast by humans. They're doing pretty well in general right now, but it's at a major expense of driving wildlife species to extinction. We were in the middle of a mass extinction right now. So even if humans are waking up and being able to get our food really easily, do we want to live in a world where we're driving lots [00:16:30] of animals to extinction? Um, we've, you know, we all live on the planet. We have a right to exist. Frogs have a right to exist. Future humans have a right to exist on a planet with healthy ecosystems and wildlife.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find it really interesting about how you, you're talking about a major, major issue, but you're focusing on, you know, frogs is almost like a symbol of that issue, which is a really great tactic for lots of, um, people who start organizations to really be focused on one particular problem that really is representative of [00:17:00] a, of a bigger problem. So,
Speaker 2:yeah, I think in saving frogs, we save a lot of other wildlife species and make a better world for humans. A lot of the actions that it takes to protect amphibians make the world a better place in general. And I do agree when I started, say the frogs, I didn't think of it as I'm going to do something different and focus on one species. But I did quickly noticed that most environmental groups are focused on, um, a type of action such as, [00:17:30] um, restoring habitat or a geographical location such as save some valley or something like that. And it has been really good working with frogs, uh, because people did not know a lot about them. And it does allow us to focus in on one, uh, one topic and really get into, yeah. Well, let's talk about your organization. So you started at, you had said you got to a fun from our grant, from the National Geographic that was actually during my phd and for my phd research.
Speaker 2:[00:18:00] So when I started saving the frogs, uh, no, we did not have any funding. I had about $3,000. That was my, uh, life savings pretty much, and dedicated that towards getting saved, the frogs going paint off initial costs. And I actually, um, worked unpaid for 18 months before there was enough money to give me any kind of salary. So, uh, starting a nonprofit definitely is not easy. Um, certainly if you don't have wealthy financial connections and it takes, just takes a lot of hard work. [00:18:30] But we are able in this day and age to get a lot done based on having great technology and you know, you can start a website, it doesn't cost much. You can go out and give presentations, you can give free education, you can get people involved, you can use social media to get people involved. So there's lots of ways to run an organization on a low cost though, you know, it's certainly not ideal.
Speaker 2:And if we did have a lot more funding we could get a lot more done. Currently we've got a myself [00:19:00] and two part time employees in the USA. We also have two full time employees in Ghana, west Africa where we have an international branch. But you know, we have so many campaigns that we could be working on. I could easily have a staff of 20 if we had funding available. And what is the primary funding sources? Just grants that you, you go after a, generally it's been donations from individuals. So just people who like what we do donating. And we also have memberships and I encourage everyone out there [00:19:30] to go to save the frogs.com/members become a member of say the frogs. We also have merchandise. We have an online store, uh, where people can buy organic cotton tee shirts, tote bags made of recycled plastic bottles and other eco-friendly fraud themed merchandise that helps us raise funds, help spread the word, gives people a easy way to start a conversation about frogs and educate their friends about frogs.
Speaker 2:And we also, as he said, have a retail store slash education [00:20:00] center in Berkeley at San Pablo Avenue at the corner of Dwight. Uh, it's near cafe tree s in the Sierra Club and ecology center. And so people are invited to come by there. We actually, um, have occasional events of interest there too. And we have an events page on saved the frogs.com. And yeah, we also do occasionally get some grants. We just received a $24,000 grant from lush cosmetics. So sometimes those grants are from corporate donors. We've gotten fund [00:20:30] funding from nature's path, Inviro kids cereal, frog tape, chase bank. And we recently got a $20,000 grant for our habitat restoration efforts in west Africa from Disney worldwide conservation fund. Interesting. What does a, what does it make up company care frogs?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we've actually gotten funding from the body shop also in the past. And I think some of these, a cosmetics company, they're into um, animals and that they don't do animal testing so they have some [00:21:00] inherent interest in animals. And also one thing I've noticed through the years is that a lot of our donors tend to be females and so perhaps females have a more caring side of them, I'm not sure. But that kind of goes along with it. So, uh, the body shop and lush cosmetics definitely have environmental giving programs, which I think, I personally think that all corporations should have environmental giving programs cause all corporations have an effect on the environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, we're talking to doc, Dr Carrie Krieger, the founder [00:21:30] of save the frogs.com and you're listening to KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM. This has meant to the madness and carry you the one thing we have, you know, people who listen to this show who might be students who are thinking about, you know, some of the thoughts that you had as you knew you had some passion around this topic or you took this leap and now it's six years later after you took the leap and you know, you've established yourself and you know, you're the brand. If you will have saved the frogs and you've done so many education and so many actions, um, what kind of advice would you [00:22:00] give to a young person who wants to, who has it passionate about a topic like you have, um, and taking action against that passion?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll start by saying that we're working on forming a save the frogs chapter at UC Berkeley. So if you're a student and you want to get more involved with save the frogs and definitely contact us, you can send an email to contact@savethefrogsdotcomorjustgotothesavethefrogs.com website or stop by our save the Frogs Education Center [00:22:30] at 25 24 San Pablo Avenue. And you can probably even talk to me when you're there in general, if you're interested, certainly in environmental issues, then I think the key is just learn as much as you can. Study hard, try to volunteer at most universities, there are graduate students doing wildlife research. You could probably use your help and you will learn a lot doing that. And also I think it's important too to volunteer at nonprofits. It's [00:23:00] a completely different set of skills you will learn. Then you generally learn while in the university and it's relevant and applicable to everyday life and professional life and broadens your perspective.
Speaker 2:So the key, you know, with, with any career when you're starting out, you have to do your work in school, but you also have to volunteer, find an internship. Um, find a men mentor if possible and just work on getting all the experience you can, uh, try to [00:23:30] stick with things that inspire you. If you're doing some volunteer work and it's not interesting, then it's probably not what you should be doing. So I would just keep, um, keep finding things that interest you and keep working with people who, um, you like they do. And then you'll build up a skill set and get ideas of your own with whatever path forward you want to pursue.
Speaker 1:And then taking that idea, like you started your own organization, what would you, what would be your advice for starting an organization like you did?
Speaker 2:Yes. [00:24:00] Only start an organization. If you are extremely passionate about your mission and you really want to, um, get that mission accomplished because it takes a lot of time and effort and dedication and there's a lot of difficult times and in the nonprofit world there's a very high chance, especially if you start your own nonprofit that you will not be getting paid for some of that time. Certainly in the early, um, weeks, months, possibly even years. So [00:24:30] yeah, start an organization if there's a need for it. And if you're, if you really enjoy the work that you're doing and you really think that it's important.
Speaker 1:Okay. Thanks. And the last question I like to ask people sitting in your seat right now is, you know, you've put so much energy into creating this new organization that has this really amazing mission to save frogs. It's like everybody knows frogs are, we loves frogs and you're trying to save them and it's something everybody can get behind. Um, if you were, if everything wants [00:25:00] to cope it completely right for you and your organization five years from now, what would save the frogs look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'd have a lot of people trained in how to build wetlands and we'd have a lot of schools, uh, and private land owners, building wetlands. And I would have an entire staff dedicated to building wetlands. Uh, that's, and I bring that up first topic because that's one of our major new focuses. Uh, we [00:25:30] now, um, have the ability to go out and fix land that was previously destroyed. And we've been, we've already started building wetlands at schools and it's really amazing educational opportunity for the students and teachers who are in, who are involved and it's great for the amphibians. And that school then gets an outdoor classroom for hopefully decades to come where they can spend time outside, which is something that in this day and age, a lot [00:26:00] of students certainly in America don't get the opportunity to do just based on the society that we now live in. So yeah, that's one of our huge focuses is building wetlands. And then I also want to have lots of chapters all around the world, whether they're university student chapters or just community chapters in lots of different countries.
Speaker 1:Okay, great. Well, there's the vision from Dr Carrie Krieger, the founder of save the frogs. Um, a a Berkeley based [00:26:30] organization that has a worldwide vision to help our amphibian brothers and sisters survive into the next, uh, centuries and millennia or however long they've been. They've been around what, 300 million? So another 300 million years healthfully. So a, and you'd been listening to KLX Berkeley's method to the madness. My name is Ali [inaudible]. If you want to learn more about Carrie's work, you can go to save the frogs.com and uh, thanks for listening everybody and have a great Friday.
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