Guerilla Frogger

On the brow of a hill overlooking the forest sits the spacious new earthquake-proof house where Kubicki and his Costa Rican wife live. He’s in this for the long haul, clearly, but one senses the stress in Kubicki’s rapid speech and daily multitasking, a sense of urgency about documenting and preserving species before it’s too late. Captive breeding means more frogs to put back into the environment—but there has to be an environment to put them back into. It’s Kubicki’s field research, says Gagliardo, all those wet nights slogging through the rainforest, wired on jungle cappuccino, watching, listening, and counting, that will really tell us what’s going on, and give amphibians, and the places they need to live, a fair shot at survival.•

—Moira Farr