BY JANET McCONNAUGHEY • ASSOCIATED PRESS • October 12, 2008 NEW ORLEANS -- Pick up a Mississippi gopher frog and it covers its eyes with its forefeet, like someone afraid to see what’s coming next. And for at least a decade, it’s had a good reason not to look. This year, for a change, nature gave a bit of a break to one of the nation’s most endangered species. Few remain in the wild, with the Detroit Zoo and four other zoos holding several dozen as well. The frogs breed only in ponds so shallow they dry up in summer. Hot, dry springs have stranded tadpoles every year since 1998, when 161 froglets hopped out of Glen’s Pond in coastal Harrison County, Miss. The pond held water longer this year. And 181 tadpoles survived a deadly parasite, made it through metamorphosis and headed into the surrounding DeSoto National Forest....
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