A camouflaged amphibian with salmon-pink legs may get 170,000 acres in Santa Barbara County in which to frolic, mate and hop its way back to an unthreatened existence.

Federal wildlife officials this week proposed a new list of critical habitats for the descriptively named California red-legged frog, which has been listed as a threatened species since 1996.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recommended designating approximately 1.8 million acres across 28 California counties as habitat critical to the frog’s survival.

The revised FWS proposal indicated approximately 130,000 acres more in Santa Barbara County than the previous designation of critical habitat for the largest native frog in 2006.

There are seven critical habitat designations in Santa Barbara County identified in the FWS proposal, including areas east of Santa Maria and Santa Ynez; south of Orcutt and into Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB); parts of Goleta extending north; and a section of Lompoc stretching into the southern portion of VAFB.

Vandenberg could be exempt from the critical habitat listing, as it has been in the past, but the base does not have an approved final resource management plan, according to the FWS proposal.

Without a plan, anything VAFB did that may affect the habitat of the frog would have to be reviewed and overlooked by FWS regardless of the urgency of the mission or threat to national security, said Air Force Staff Sgt. Ben Rojek.

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Base officials are working on a revised copy of an integrated natural resource management plan, which would outline an effective, beneficial program with steps for implementation, and would allow flexibility with last-minute missions, Rojek said.

“Vandenberg is full of wildlife, and it is important to us to be good stewards of our natural resources,” Rojek said.

A designation of critical habitat does not affect privately owned land other than to prohibit harming threatened or endangered wildlife, which is in effect regardless of critical habitat designation. And landowners have the option of participating in the FWS recovery plan for the species.

In terms of development on designated land, unless an environmental report declares the construction to be a significant impact to the critical frog habitat, mitigation measures would be put in place and carried out by the developer, according to Jerry Bunin, government affairs director of the Central Coast Home Builders Association.

Bunin said he understood that the red-legged frog would be added to other threatened or endangered species studied in any environmental report or in analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act.

“It’s not substantially a huge problem,” Bunin said. “It doesn’t by itself mean extra hassle.”

While public comments are being accepted until Nov. 17, the next step is an economic analysis, which will also be released for public review and comment.

The FWS in 2006 proposed 450,288 acres of critical red-legged frog habitat be designated, but the accompanying economic analysis revealed it would cost $498 million in lost development opportunities over 20 years.

However, FWS spokesman Al Donner said the two proposals cannot be directly compared because they rely on different sets of data.

This new proposal generally avoids areas on the fringes of developed land, fragmented areas and intensely farmed areas, and includes an exclusion for ranching operations if they practice frog-friendly management.

Routine ranching activities such as livestock grazing and maintenance of stock ponds would be considered frog-friendly management. Harmful ranch operations would be introducing bullfrogs, one of the biggest predators to red-legged frogs, to ponds, and using toxic gases to control rodents.

Sam Womack can be reached at 739-2218 or swomack@santamariatimes.com.

September 18, 2008