We Can Be Their Bridges

For a CIIS arts class final this semester, I produced We Can Be Their Bridges: On Befriending Amphibians, a short film featuring Friends School of Atlanta student illustrations. This Bridge Log post expands on the film’s content to celebrate PARC Amphibian Week and Teacher Appreciation Week 2024. I also reflect on this collaboration in Space for Everyone. Many thanks to Friends School students for the writing prompt, their teachers Joanna Gerber and John Grijak, my CIIS Arts in Context teacher George Reyes, PARC and Amphibian Foundation, and everyone devoted to helping amphibians, reviving global biodiversity, and drawing down greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.

See all the student illustrations and written reflections in the Friends School of Atlanta Gallery.

BRIDGES in THEIR WORLDS

Spring 2024, Friends School of Atlanta 4th graders started a unit on amphibians with Frog Song as a study guide. Class activities included drawing new frogs and worlds they imagine. Some of the students included bridges in their worlds and reflected on what bridges represent.

Bridges can be structures, policies, networks, and metaphors. They can provide literal and emotional support. And because our emotions are linked with our basic sense of safety and security, all literal support is emotional support. We can easily forget how important bridges are when they are present. Losing bridges and the lengths to rebuild them can be a harsh reminder of their critical roles in our lives.

SEASONAL POOLS and the CLIMATE FACTOR

Toughie’s species, Rabbs’ fringe-limbed treefrog, lives high in the forest canopy and rears young in tree holes. But, many amphibians live their dual life on the ground. Literal land bridges allow these amphibians to migrate from where they live on land to seasonal (vernal) pools where they reproduce. Because they are temporary and separated from permanent water bodies, these seasonal pools provide critical fishless breeding habitat for amphibians.

Amphibian Migration graphic courtesy of **Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation**.

Many land bridges for amphibians are obstructed by or have been lost completely to exclusive human infrastructure. So, during migration season, humans gather on “big nights” to help amphibians across roads. Their hands are literal bridges that maintain connectivity between protected land and seasonal pools.

To complicate the matter, these seasonal pools are changing thanks to changes in local precipitation patterns related to changes in global climate. This means that amphibians are threatened by decreased breeding time when these seasonal pools disappear or dry out too soon.

Humans are addressing this global climate-related local precipitation challenge directly for amphibians, including frosted flatwoods salamanders of the longleaf pine ecosystem, through captive breeding programs. Their “mesocosms” are bridges that provide safe habitat for larval salamanders to become air-breathing adults.

The second Global Amphibian Assessment—GAA2 (October 2023) reports that the global status of amphibians continues to deteriorate. Notably, climate change has driven slightly greater status deterioration than habitat loss since 2004 (39% and 37% respectively). Habitat loss, primarily related to agriculture, is still the biggest danger affecting 93% of threatened amphibian species.

Amphibians need help and we can be their bridges. Everything we do matters. And when it comes to climate challenges, we are all bridges for amphibians when we act to drawdown carbon and other greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.