Hannah Chin

Mara likes to cite a 2020 study about this.

Oh, dear.

That number doesn't count snakes, salamanders, lizards, other animals that are also killed by cats.

They are.

But the good thing is, Emily, these things can work in reverse as well, right?

So just as human development can hurt reptiles and amphibians, it's also pretty easy for humans to help them.

Like planting native plants and removing invasives or avoiding pesticide use.

Keeping our cats inside and then supporting temporary wetlands like ponds and marshes wherever they crop up near us.

Yes, totally.

And there's actually one more aspect of Shabnam's question that I want to get into, Emily.

This idea that she's noticing more lizards and frogs.

Because Mara and Daniel told me just because she's seeing them more often doesn't necessarily mean there's a population increase, that there's more of them.

Okay, but how come we don't know?

Because there's still a big gap in local scientists' data.

And that's because long-term studies monitoring the populations of these species in metro Atlanta really just don't exist.

So Mara is trying to change that through community science.

And Emily, anyone in the Metro Atlanta area can apply to be a community scientist in this MAMP program.

Mara and her colleagues will train them to identify each species in the field and document their findings.

And then volunteers have to take a series of quizzes to basically show that they retained all that information.

This is like school.