The frogs, listed on Utah's Sensitive Species List and once nearly included on the federal Endangered Species List, always called the Wasatch Front home, but encroaching development and loss of the wetlands needed for their survival decimated the animal's population. They are now found only in small numbers in five Utah counties: Juab, Sanpete, Summit, Utah and Wasatch.

In May, state and federal wildlife workers placed thousands of spotted frog tadpoles into protective cages in ponds on the Swaner Nature Preserve near Kimball Junction in the hope that some of the frogs would make the ponds and surrounding marshes their permanent home. If successful, the program will mark the first time Columbia spotted frogs get to return to some of their historical habitat through such a recovery effort.

"We protect them and give them supplemental feed," said Krissy Wilson, an aquatic biologist with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. "We give them every advantage we can. This is like froggy day care."

Thursday, Brigham Young University biology professor Mark Belk and a group of his students opened the cages and started counting and marking the brownish frogs before releasing them into the series of interconnected ponds at the preserve. At this early stage, Belk said, things are looking good.

He and his students are finding a better than 50 percent survival rate of the tadpoles that have been growing in the protective cages since May, compared with a typical survival rate of less than 5 percent in the unprotected, natural world.

"If we get 50 to 100 [adult frogs] from each pond that's connected to each other, we'll be thrilled," Belk said, noting that a successful reintroduction of the Columbia spotted frogs will act as an indicator that other species might be recovered in similar ways.

And the research Belk and other scientists can conduct in the relatively controlled environment of the preserve will help them decide how best to reintroduce the frogs to other areas of their historic habitat.

The true test of the program's success, according to both Belk and Wilson, will come in two to three years, when the frogs have matured to the point of reproducing.

Belk and his students will scope the edges of the ponds for egg clusters that will each hold 2,000 to 3,000 potential new frogs. In the intervening time, the frogs released Thursday will have to contend with their natural enemies.

"They're going to be food for some cranes," said Norm Evenstad, district conservationist for the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, noting that three or four pairs of sandhill cranes make the Swaner preserve home.

Snakes could also find the frogs a tasty snack, but on the other hand, the ponds at the preserve don't include any fish that would typically eat the tadpoles and small frogs "like popcorn."

For the people on hand Thursday for the frogs' first appearance outside their protective cages, the program is already a success, judging from the "oohs" and "aahs" coming from a couple dozen Swaner volunteers and kids on hand. There were even bubble gum cigars passed around, with the "It's a boy!" message covered with a frog sticker.