How many of you here on FrogForum are SoCal'ers? Where are you from? Anything you'd like to share about how you came to be a frogger? What amphibians are you working with?

Any interest in forming a regional group? I'm part of a Dart Frog group out here in SoCal and we meet up every few months to trade/sell frogs, supplies and ideas/husbandry practices.

My name is Christian Powell and I live in Redlands, CA. I am going to college for biology with hopes of someday becoming a high school biology teacher.

My fascination with critters started when I was just a few years old. As a child, I spent most of my free time in the backyard, flipping over stepping stones and pieces of bark in search of bugs. I never found action figures very interesting or fun. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would respond "An Entomologist"...

I always had snakes and lizards as pets growing up. When I was 18, I joined the Army and had to take a break from keeping herps for the almost 7 years of service.

As soon as I was out of the Army, I took up snakes again and LOTS of field herping. I was primarily interested in Rosy Boas; it's pretty easy to find them in the wild here in SoCal. Eventually, I broadened my collection to geckos (uroplatus and rhacodactylus)... It wasn't too long after that I acquired some Red Eye Tree Frogs after a buddy of mine showed me how easy and fun it is to build backgrounds.

Divorce led me to having to get rid of my collection. A few more years went by and my buddy talked me into taking home my first poison dart frogs (a trio of dendrobates leucomelas). I was addicted within a few weeks of watching their behavior and next thing I knew my collection grew from a single vivarium to three... A little over a year later, I have about a dozen vivariums, each containing species/morph specific groups of different poison dart frogs.

Currently, I am only working with Poison Dart Frogs and some backyard jumping spiders. I'm hoping to expand my collection to have more amphibian diversity... I really want to start working with tree frogs and salamanders.

I would love to learn more about the rest of you SoCal Froggers here on FrogForum

-Christian Powell