Students in a conservation data science class at St. Vrain Valley’s Innovation Center are working to shepherd about 400 northern leopard frog tadpoles to maturity so they can be released in the wild with a higher chance for survival.
Their goal is to release the tadpoles when they’re past the high mortality rates of their early stages but before they complete the transformation into frogs. A fungus and a virus, both carried by invasive bullfrogs, are the main culprits of the early die-offs, the students said.