Recent funding from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (soon to be Department of Wildlife) included engagement with community scientists to increase observations of frogs across eastern New Mexico. Though primarily aimed to target observations of American Bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) along the Pecos River, we are interested in all observations of anurans across the region. American Bullfrogs are considered a non-native, invasive species across most of New Mexico, including along the Pecos River watershed. The only region in the state where American Bullfrogs are native is believed to be in the Canadian River watershed in northeastern New Mexico. Early detection of American Bullfrogs is key to prevent their spread and establishment into new areas and control efforts can help to protect native species from these voracious predators.

As part of this engagement with community scientists, we have launched a new project on the platform iNaturalist (www.inaturalist.org) called Frogs of Eastern New Mexico (www.inaturalist.org/projects/frogs-of-eastern-new-mexico). Although this iNaturalist project will aggregate observations of all anurans across the study region, please consider joining the project to share all relevant metadata on your contributed observations.