Pony Ranch Pond, a new home for the dusky gopher frog, is monitored by the National Forests in Mississippi and several cooperators. (Western Carolina University photo/ John A. Tupy)

To most people, the sound heard near Pony Ranch Pond could easily be mistaken as snoring. To local conservation professionals, however, it was more like a song, signifying hope and celebrating a small victory for the nearly extinct dusky gopher frog.

In February, National Forests in Mississippi staff, researchers and volunteers discovered and documented six dusky gopher frogs at the De Soto National Forest pond. One frog, a 5-year-old female, had travelled nearly a mile from nearby Glen’s Pond – until then the only known site where the endangered amphibians live and breed. Read more »

Volunteers help harvest native seedlings at the Hiawatha National Forest greenhouse in Marquette, Mich. U.S. Forest Service photo.

Biologists have long recognized the important role native plants play in maintaining a healthy forest. When native plants are crowded out by invasive plants, those native species can suffer to the point of extinction.

Since the early 1990s, the Hiawatha National Forest has operated a greenhouse in Marquette, Mich. The idea is to provide both native seeds and seedlings for successful restoration of sites impacted by logging or disturbed by other land management activities. For instance, when aging culverts are replaced, native plants can be introduced to re-vegetate disturbed soil. Seeds and seedlings are also used to enhance existing wildlife habitats. Read more »

Jugita Krilaviciute, left, works the soil during the Vail Resorts Hayman Restoration Project in the Trail Creek drainage on Thursday, June 2, 2011. The Vail Resorts Hayman Restoration Project is in the second of a three year, $750,000 partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and The Rocky Mountain Field Institute to restore lands damaged by the 2002 Hayman wildfire, the largest in Colorado's history. (Vail Resorts Photo/ Peter M. Fredin)

The Hayman Fire was the largest and most destructive wildfire in Colorado’s history.  On June 8, 2002, the fire began raging through the Pike National Forest, as well as state, county and private lands, burning a total of 137,760 acres. Read more »

Karly Hedrick (l) and Fran Willis (r) admire a quilt in progress. Photo by Maret Pajutee, USFS.

To date, the Tale of Two Rivers conservation campaign has generated an original microbrew, an annual cycling event, a paint-a-thon and a movie screening.

Now up: a modern quilting bee. Read more »

This Hawaiian mintless mint (Haplostachys haplostachya) was once found on the islands of Kaua`i, Maui, and Hawai`i. It is now listed as a federally endangered species and is currently found only within the U.S. Department of Defense's Pohakuloa Training Area on the island of Hawai`i. With the help of new remote sensing techniques developed by USDA Forest Service's Dr. Susan Cordell and her team, research scientists hope to find ways to restore and protect this and other threatened species on the Hawaiian Islands. (Photo: Amanda Uowolo, Forest Service)

A Forest Service research team has received a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Environmental Security Technology Certification Program to begin research using sophisticated topographic models to identify areas within dry forests that have the most potential for ecological restoration. Read more »

Strawberry guava plant.

This month a Brazilian beetle, tested for years by the U.S. Forest Service, is being released in Hawaii to hopefully devourer a non-native fruit known as strawberry guava. Though it sounds delicious, this colorful plant is invading and threatening Hawaii’s native forests and watersheds and has already overtaken hundreds of thousands of acres on the archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Read more »