Frog of the year: Leap Day 2008 is also the start of the Year of the Frog, a global awareness effort to increase understanding of the threats frogs and other amphibians are facing around the globe.Courtesy wikipediaLeap Day (today, Feb. 29) usually gets its scientific props in regard to astronomy, phenology or maybe rare birthday-ology.

But those concerned with care for our amphibious friends are using today as the jumping off point to raise more awareness of the dangers frogs and their related species are facing today.

So Feb. 29, 2008, is also the start of the Year of the Frog. Here’s what’s happened in the past 28 years: 120 varieties of amphibians have gone extinct on our planet. Breaking that down into a yearly average, that’s about four species per year.

Even more sobering news, about half of the remaining 6,000 species croaking and sliming about are on endangered lists.

But here’s the big idea for the Year of the Frog. Researchers are hoping to develop an Amphibian Ark, a place similar to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault that opened this week in Norway, where zoo organizations would maintain populations of amphibians in a controlled environment that could eventually be released into the wild when appropriate environments get more stable.

Now isn’t that an idea we should all get jumping on?