So a couple of years ago when I was asked to organize something at the Museum to recognize Save the Frogs Day, (Yes I am blogging about work again :( ) it wasn't too much of a stretch. We have several species of frogs as a permanent part of our living collections
and it provided us with the perfect excuse to sneak an extra couple of days of field work to go out and collect the remaining species so that we could display all thirteen species that are native to the Chicago region.
Well now Save the Frog Day has become a permanent fixture on our calendar and each year we try and change things up a bit. This year we decided that as well as displaying all the native frogs we would also show some exotic species too. In my totally unbiased opinion Winston stole the show!
As well as having over 25 species of frogs on display, we had an information table for visitors to find out about all the threats that amphibians are facing and what they can do to help.
We had representatives from the Frog Monitoring Network recruiting volunteers to partake in their citizen science program.
And we had numerous art and craft activities and games that children could partake in, all frog related
We got some great coverage from local TV channels too, here is the clip of the WGN Coverage
And here is a cut down version of the NBC Coverage and Winston won over everyone at the studio and ended up being friended by a couple of the presenters! (Yes, Winston Packman has his very own facebook page!!) They even used him at the end of the program when they were running the credits too :)
Hopefully we got our message out that many amphibians are facing a lot of threats in the modern world and they are an enigmatic and delightful group of species that are well worth protecting and conserving.
Photo Credits - CJT
