Inventorying and Monitoring Protocols of Amphibians and Reptiles in National Parks of the Eastern United States

The authors conducted a long-term project (1992-1996) designed to provide a comprehensive review of vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) in four national parks in the eastern United States. They field tested select protocols at Gettysburg National Military Park, Eisenhower National Historic Site, Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, and Valley Forge National Historical Park to (1) determine the effectiveness of protocols for inventorying and monitoring terrestrial vertebrates in terms of time, labor, cost and types of data obtained and (2) predict and document the number of terrestrial vertebrate species within the parks. This focus of this report is amphibians and reptiles.