Like so many other amphibians throughout the world, Lithobates chiricahuensis populations have steeply declined in recent decades, due to habitat loss and disease. It is listed as Threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

My friend Roger Repp took me to a spot where he had seen these frogs in the past. The frogs were still there, but they are cautious frogs, and I only got brief glimpses of them as they leaped to safety in the stream waters.

Roger Repp (Herp King of Southern Arizona, where the turtles are strong, the snakes are handsome, and the lizards are all above average) and I saw dozens of these frogs, but we saw the vast majority of them only as they splashed into ponds and streams. This was one of the few that we saw while it was still on the shore, and the only one that stayed in place while I maneuvered my camera.