ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Portland, Oregon, where I grew up, a special winter taxi is starting its annual service picking up frogs. The Harborton Frog Shuttle runs roughly from December to March to keep local frogs from becoming roadkill on their migration to and from their spawning grounds. Here's OPB's Jule Gilfillan.
JULE GILFILLAN, BYLINE: On a drizzly, chilly evening last March near Portland, Oregon, it was a perfect night for frog catching.
(SOUNDBITE OF FROGS CROAKING)
PHILIP FENSTERER: He's pretty squirmy. Oh, there it goes.
GILFILLAN: Each year, starting in December, northern red-legged frogs hop up to a mile from their summer home in a forested park to their wetland spawning grounds. Then around February or March, they hop back again. There's just one problem. They have to cross a four-lane, high-speed road to get from one spot to the other.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE RUMBLING)
GILFILLAN: Philip Fensterer is part of a volunteer group that's here to help them.
FENSTERER: I am the Sunday night frog taxi captain. And we're here to make sure they get across Highway 30 safely. Otherwise, it becomes real-life Frogger.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, "FROGGER")
GILFILLAN: In that video game from the '80s, frogs must hop their way across a busy roadway. And sometimes, it doesn't go well.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, "FROGGER")
GILFILLAN: On almost any night during breeding season, about a dozen volunteers can be seen combing this stretch of road for frogs. In December, they taxi the frogs toward the wetland. And on this night in March, they were shuttling them back to the park. But the process is the same either way.
FENSTERER: Grab buckets and, yeah, spread out.
GILFILLAN: But to get the frogs safely across the highway, first the volunteers have to catch them. To accomplish that task, the group sets up a 400-foot fence set back a little ways from the highway to keep the frogs from jumping into the road.
(SOUNDBITE OF FABRIC RUSTLING)
GILFILLAN: It's made from the kind of stiff fabric that keeps weeds from popping up in your garden. It comes to about waist height.
FENSTERER: It's a frog fence. It slows them down. It's really surprising how fast they move.
GILFILLAN: Wearing headlamps and yellow safety vests, volunteers walk back and forth along the fence, looking for migrating frogs to scoop up into their buckets. It might not sound like fun - spending hours wandering around in the dark and the rain - but it's just the volunteer job Sierra LaFever was looking for.
SIERRA LAFEVER: I love frogs. I found out about this. I emailed. I was like, I know you guys are full up. Is there any way I can get in on this? And they had an opening. I love it. I could be out here all night.
GILFILLAN: LaFever puts her first frog of the evening into her bucket.
LAFEVER: So we saved this little guy's life.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR CLOSING)
GILFILLAN: After a couple hours, the team gathers up the handful of frogs they've collected and loads the bucket into Fensterer's car for the short trip to the other side.
FENSTERER: Here we go. It's a shuttle. It's a frog taxi, an Fruber (ph), as in Frog Uber.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR CLOSING)
GILFILLAN: Once parked, Fensterer takes a few steps uphill to the edge of the forest and finds a small cluster of ferns under some dripping cedars. With the tip of his bucket...
(SOUNDBITE OF BUCKET RATTLING)
GILFILLAN: ...And some words of advice...
FENSTERER: Make good choices.
GILFILLAN: ...He sets the frogs on their way. Starting right about now, the small team of volunteers will be out every chilly, soggy night that frogs are on the move through the end of migration season in March.
For NPR News, I'm Jule Gilfillan in Portland, Oregon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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