Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


“Frogs and toads are disappearing on your planet. Others are born deformed,” reads the ominous message at Frogweb’s Adopt a Frog Pond Web site (www.frogweb.gov/adopt.html). This warning comes courtesy of Captain Ribbitt, the space-age spokesamphibian for the U.S. Geological Survey’s campaign to bring attention to the plight of the little green earthlings.

“He’s a frog from another planet who patrols the galaxy looking out for the conditions under which frogs live and making sure that they are OK,” says Tom Arvis, the illustrator who developed the planet-hopping crusader. Sam Droege, a USGS biologist who helped design the site, says the agency chose the caped amphibian to make the campaign “less stodgy, less bureaucratic.”

The bipedal frog hero, apparently a mutant himself, greets visitors with a simple message: “Save the Frogs.” The site seeks volunteers to help scientists count and monitor normal and mutant frogs, and asks people to report malformed frogs and dwindling frog populations in their areas. The USGS hopes to find the cause of the malformations before humans are at risk of defects like those of Captain Ribbitt’s marshland friends. As Droege says, “Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that point.”

GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

payment methods

GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate