Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 3, 1995                   TAG: 9508030037
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RIBBET

Luckily for the little amphibian, its habitat is Australia. Sydney, Australia.

More precisely, an abandoned brick quarry turned trash pit in Sydney, Australia, that sits smack dab in the middle of the site for the Olympic complex for the Summer Games in 2000.

The frog needn't sweat it (even if it could). The eye of Newt does not see as far as Sydney, where, after a little give-and-take between biologists and builders, folks are busy building and refurbishing - and rerouting their plans around the pit. A tennis center and baseball park already have been relocated, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Eco-sensitivity is part of the program, apparently, partly because the games of 2000 are supposed to be an environmental showpiece (the athletes' village will be of passive-solar design, the stadiums made of salvaged building materials and the food served on edible plates). But mostly because the bell frog is so rare that the person who messes with one faces as much as two years in jail and a $150,000 fine.

Engineers built alternative ponds for the bell frogs and little tunnels so they can get to them, the Journal reports, but so far, the critters prefer the shelter of the pit, where they are safe from predatory birds and fish and enjoy hanging out under old tires and other nasty trash. Now scientists are trying to design junk for the new ponds that won't look too ugly to people, yet will be de rigueur for the fashionable frog pad. One species' trash is another's treasure.

All of which seems a lot of trouble for a frog about the size of a thumb. But eco-hogs, not the frogs, created the problem. The green and golden bell frog once was so common it was used for dissection in university classes, the newspaper reports. Now, sprawl around Sydney has wiped out most of its habitat. There are only about 1,000 left. It's not easy being green, for man or frog.