For most northerners, the word wildlife conjures visions of moose and grizzlies, wolves and caribou. However, as Sara Nielsen, acting wildlife viewing biologist with Environment Yukon, puts it: "There are many definitions of wildlife out there, but basically it's life that is wild."

A juvenile Columbia spotted frog (Rana luteiventris) prepares to leap away from the photographer. (photo: Environment Yukon)

On Sunday, Environment Yukon will launch two booklets to help northerners and tourists become more familiar with some often-overlooked Yukon fauna: entitled Yukon Butterflies and Yukon Amphibians, the publications are pocket-sized 24-page guides for amateur naturalists to pack into the bush, or into the backyard.

"What these booklets set out to do is basically raise appreciation and awareness for butterflies and amphibians and give people an idea of what we have here, their conservation status, and how to go out and enjoy them," Nielsen says.

"We're trying to broaden people's understanding of what wildlife is."

While the books will help laypersons identify the 90-some species of butterflies known to occur in the Yukon, and the four kinds of amphibians that appear here, (and a few more species from just over the border to the south), they could prove a huge boon to professional scientists as well.

Entomologists and herpetologists cannot be everywhere at once, so it's more than likely that some small, shy creatures are overlooked. With more of the rest of us out there, informed and keeping our eyes open, previously missed butterflies, toads and salamanders may well be added to the Yukon species lists.

If amateur observers do spot new or rare species in the Yukon or northern BC, they are encouraged to report their sightings to the Wildlife Viewing Program. Their contributions will be passed along to the appropriate researchers.

The amphibian booklet even contains a field data form, which enthusiasts are asked to photocopy and return with their own observations.

The chances of adding new data to our store of knowledge about butterflies and amphibians in the territory are especially good -- in part, because the news on the global warming front is not good.

All around the world species are shifting ranges, moving further north or higher up the mountains as temperatures rise, or even moving south when other climatic changes -- such as humidity or precipitation levels -- prove unbearable, or kill off food sources.

And far more frightening, many species are vanishing completely.

"Amphibians are indicator species," says Nielsen. If we discover these creatures vanishing, it gives us a heads up as to the health of the ecosystems they inhabit. "There's been a decline throughout the world, and many people are trying to figure out why," she adds.

In fact, the new Environment Yukon field guides are being released only three weeks after the major American magazine The New Yorker ran a major feature, Butterfly Lessons: Insects and toads respond to global warming, by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Kolbert's book on global warming, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, is due out this spring.

Scientists are beginning to realize that ozone depletion and pollution are playing havoc with the sensitive amphibians. "The resulting increase in ultra-violet radiation affects eggs hatching. And they are particularly susceptible to contaminants since they breathe through their skin," says Nielsen.

Meanwhile, caterpillars can be very specialized creatures, and if the plants they feed on disappear from a region, so do the butterflies those caterpillars would have become.

To compound the stresses of global warming, these creatures face habitat loss. Entire ecosystems are mutating or dying, thanks in part to parking lots, drained wet lands, and big-business agriculture, among many other human initiatives.

Of course, butterflies and amphibians are significant, and valuable for many more reasons than what they can tell us about the health of our planet. They help us discover more about ourselves. "These are two groups of animals that reside on the edge of our knowledge between science and spirituality," Nielsen says.

When they think of frogs, people are more likely to think of the frog changelings of fairytales than they are some "icky thing in the swamp," she says.

And consider the 'magic trick' a wood frog is capable of. These amphibians extend as far north as Frog Lake in the Old Crow Flats, so they are no strangers to cold. They produce glucose in their livers, "which acts like an antifreeze, and prevents their cells from bursting."

In winter "their heart actually stops beating and the fluid freezes; they look frozen solid, but in the spring with some slow warming, they turn on again, and off they go," says Nielsen.

"Butterflies are ethereal. They seem to defy nature. They're so frail and yet they can fly and migrate so far.

"And they metamorphose. People have a hard time getting their minds around that, I think."

Bear cubs look very much like their parents. Wolf pups, baby moose, baby caribou... all look much like they will in their final living form. But a caterpillar munching its phlegmatic way across a leaf hardly gives a hint of a vibrant, high-flying butterfly it will become.

Environment Yukon and the Yukon Science Institute are co-producing Sunday's launch at the Beringia Centre and have given the event the very appropriate and promising title: Of Myth and Magic: Yukon Butterflies and Amphibians.

Harold Parsons, a herpetologist from Vancouver, will speak on the frogs and salamanders, while the Yukon's own Andre Langlois, a lepidopterist, will share his passion for butterflies.

The January 29 event gets underway at the Beringia Centre at 7:30 p.m. "Admission is free and so are the cookies," says Nielsen. Free copies of the booklets will be available at the launch.

For more information on this natural magic show go to the Yukon Science Institute website at www.taiga.net/ysi. More information on the booklets and wildlife in general can be had by calling Wildlife Viewing at (867) 667-8291 or checking out www.environmentyukon.gov.yk.ca/viewing.

The field guides will be appearing at visitors' centres, nature centres, in Environment Yukon offices, and they'll likely be showing up in the schools soon, says Nielsen.