Nowicki418
New member
I've been filming a wildlife documentary for over a year now and am starting to wrap things up. The film is estimated to be about an hour long and I hope to show it at the senior project this upcoming school year. Most of the video concentrates on showing the public aspects of nature in which they were previously unaware but one section I hope to talk a little about conservation, specifically for one of my favorite anura the Northern Leopard frog.
The part will talk about the construction of man made ponds and how they can be harmful if built over a pre-existing vernal pond. The main focus will be when these ponds are stocked with fish and plant life is removed from the ponds diameter. Michigan doesn't have any frogs that live literally in the pond and they all need some sort of cover from predators. The leopard frog requires a tall grassy area around the pond which is where it will spend a lot of its time. When the grass around a pond is cut the leopards habitat is destroyed. As only a high schooler I have personally seen Michigan populations of leopard frogs decrease in the past ten years. While we focus a lot of attention on endangered species it is more important that we keep common species common. It is easy to live alongside the leopard frog. All we must do is leave one side of the pond alone for vegetation and anura habitat.
Fall is the better time to film leopard frogs in MI so I'm already getting a plan together and keeping my eye out for ponds to use as bad examples. I originally was going to write out a more detailed version of this part but it was far to long to post as it was like 3 times the size of what I wrote here. I understand that when I sumarize the summary can sometimes be misleading. Any specific questions or comments and I can give more details. Anyways, what do you think? Is this a relevant issue? Is the leopard frog a good example? I want constructive criticism.
