The White House officials told NBC News they are now considering escalating the United States' involvement in the Syrian civil war as thousands of women and children die in Aleppo, NBC New reported. 

These considerations include unspecified "actions…that would further underscore the consequences of [Russia] not coming back to the negotiating table."

The hope for a diplomatic solution went out the window after Secretary of State John Kerry's ceasefire agreement with Russia never worked out. The U.S. suspended talks with Russia on Monday.

As fear for the city of Aleppo looms, audio recording released over the weekend showed Kerry saying that he's argued unsuccessfully for military action over the conflict.

An administration official told NBC News that the U.S. will continue to send humanitarian relief to the war torn nation.

Space Micro Inc. said it plans to develop a radiation-hardened astrophysics instrument under a recently awarded contract from NASA.

The value of the deal was not disclosed. The federal funds are a small business innovation research contract. SBIR grants top out at $125,000 for phase I and $750,000 for phase II, according to information from NASA.

“This NASA R&D contract will expand our portfolio of space products to support NASA missions,” David Strobel, Space Micro’s CEO, said in a prepared statement.

The Mira Mesa-based company teamed up with Arizona State University to do the work. Specifically, the partners plan to develop a kinetic inductance detector (KID) and associated readout electronics. The detector will be useful for many future NASA missions, Space Micro said.

Space Micro is employee owned.

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated as part of coverage of Hurricane Matthew.

The last time southern Florida faced down a hurricane's full wrath was more than a decade ago.

Since then the state has grown by at least 2.5 million people. Many newcomers may be unprepared for the punishing winds and surges of water that come with a direct hit, and not used to boarding up their windows or evacuating their homes.

That worries professional hurricane watchers.

“There are going to be people who have moved to the state and don’t know what to do, how well to prepare for a hurricane,” said David Nolan, the chairman of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

Others who experienced a hurricane may have forgotten how to prepare for one or become complacent, he said.

While Hurricane Hermine struck North Florida earlier this year, the last hurricane to hit southern Florida was Wilma in 2005. It killed 25 people, left most of South Florida without power and cut a broad swath of damage in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Hurricane Matthew made landfall in Haiti on Tuesday morning and is heading toward Cuba and the southeastern coast of Florida. The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for South Florida late Tuesday morning. 

Gov. Rick Scott warned residents to take the storm seriously, adding "we cannot rule out a direct hit."

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most destructive for the United States, largely because of Hurricane Katrina two months earlier, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. Katrina alone caused $151 billion in damage and killed 1,833. In all, seven named storms made landfall in the United States during 2005, and eight the year before.

Why was there a flurry of storms in Florida and then none?

“I don’t think anyone can give a specific answer to that,” Nolan said. “Hurricane activity has been reduced a lot in the last 10 years.”

In addition, in the last few years, the jet stream has dipped over the East Coast, bringing cold and stormy winters — a weather pattern that can draw storms such as Sandy up to the Northeast and away from Florida, he said.

Hurricanes are very unusual, so 10 years without one is not that odd, he said. Florida had a long period of little hurricane activity in the 1970s and 1980s until Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, destroying homes and downing power lines from Fort Lauderdale to the Florida Keys. Five thousand people were left homeless.

Elliott Stares, 42, is among the newcomers to Florida. Originally from the United Kingdom, the public relations consultant with his own firm moved to South Beach 14 years ago. He and his wife are creating a "go bag" for an emergency evacuation from their Miami neighborhood.

"Since I've been here, I've been lucky enough not to experience a direct hit like Andrew," said Stares, who became a citizen in March.

If an evacuation is mandatory and there is enough time, they would try to reach his wife's parents in Dallas, he said.

The condominium complex where he lives has hurricane-proof windows so he feels it is "pretty well battened" for a mild storm.

"But anything from 3 and above, based on the authorities' advice on evacuating, then we would oblige," he said. 

The number of hurricanes predicted for the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season called for a near-normal season with 10 to 16 named storms, with four to eight hurricanes and one to four "major" ones.

Officials cautioned in 2015 that even a below-normal season can still be devastating and pointed to 1992, when only seven named storms formed but the first was Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane. Category 5 storms — the most powerful classification — have sustained wind speeds on 157 miles per hour or more and cause catastrophic damage.

Because of Andrew, Miami-Dade County has some of the toughest building codes in the country, particularly for wind, said Brian Haus, professor of Ocean Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School. But the state’s housing is a mix of old and new, and many of the coastal areas were built before there were strong storm surge codes, he said.

“So many coastal buildings in the older areas are not elevated,” he said. “They need to be.”

Late in 2014, the school opened a new research complex that includes a hurricane wind-wave tank that can generate Category 5 hurricane-force winds. Researchers are trying to get better data on the effects of wind and water surges, not only on individual buildings but on neighboring structures as well. Driven by intense winds, the seawater exerts extreme force on buildings, he said.

During the 2015 hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center introduced a new graphic specifically for storm surges in addition to one for wind speeds. The center will issue separate storm surge watches and warnings separate from the hurricane watches and warnings it has traditionally broadcast. A watch is defined as the possibility of life-threatening flooding within 48 hours; a warning, within 36 hours.

The graphic complements a potential storm surge flooding map, released during Hurricane Arthur in 2014, which shows where inundation could occur and how high above group the water could potentially reach.

A surge of seawater is often the greatest threat. It can occur at different times and places than a hurricane’s winds and well inland from the coast and might require evacuation.

Hurricane Ike — which devastated the Bolivar Peninsula of Texas and caused widespread damage in other areas of southeastern Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas in 2008 — was the impetus for the emphasis on storm surges, said Jamie Rhome, the leader of the National Hurricane Center’s Storm Surge Unit.

More recently Hurricane Sandy focused the public’s attention on the damage that could result. Though only a Category 1 when it made landfall in southern New Jersey in 2012, with sustained winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour, Sandy was a massive storm that did $67 billion in damage from flooding, according to NOAA. The storm surge — the rising seawater that results from wind and changes in atmospheric pressure — pushed water inland.

Recent research shows that storm surges are the primary killers during hurricanes, but polling indicates that the public believes otherwise, Rhome said.

“People really only think wind when they hear hurricane, they’re primarily focused on wind, yet it’s water that’s resulting in the largest loss of life,” he said. “That disconnect is what we’re really seeking to tackle with these new maps.”

As far as Florida’s hurricane-free streak?

“I guarantee you that remarkable streak is going to end,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “And we have to go into 2015 assuming that it’s going to end this year.”

While Donald Trump touts himself as a business genius, tax experts say that his experiences suggest otherwise, according to NBC News.

Following the New York Times' release of pages from Trump's 1995 tax filings that show close to $916 million in losses, Trump attempted to explain the documents. He said they were evidence of his "talent," "skill, dedication and sheer grit." 

He said the losses are his "net operating loss," or NOL. NOL can cancel out an individual's income tax during a given year. NYU tax law professor Dan Shaviro said that the NOL loophole isn't special to Trump - it's something any business owner would use.

Shaviro added that a loss of over $900 million is "unusual."

A former inmate will be reunited with a group of deputies and nurses that helped save her life after her heart stopped in her cell.

On Labor Day, September 5, Christina Livingston fell to the floor of her cell at Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility in Santee. She was unresponsive and had no pulse.

Livingston had an undiagnosed abnormal heart rhythm which caused her heart to abruptly stop.

Three Sheriff’s deputies and two nurses quickly came to her aid, giving her CPR continuously for 15 minutes until an ambulance arrived. Doctors told Christina that with her condition she wouldn’t have survived with anything less 10 minutes of CPR.

Livingston and her mother, Jane Evans, were so grateful to Deputies Janelle Joseif and Monika Pamerin, Corporal Lauren Gillis, and nurses Anabelle Jensen and Joan Thomas that they requested a meeting with them so that they could thank them in person.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department granted their wish and will reunite the two parties on Tuesday in the lobby of the Santee facility.

A San Diego man has been identified as the victim of a suspicious death investigation after his body was found in the middle of a baseball field at the Allied Gardens Recreation Center on Monday.

Aaron Randall Miller, 28, was found dead just before 7 a.m. on the 5100 block of Greenbrier Avenue, according to the San Diego Police Department (SDPD).

Police say they recieved a call from a citizen who reported seeing an unconscious man lying in the middle of the baseball field.

Officers did not immediately find any obvious signs of trauma on Miller's body, but after closer examination, they discovered a small, potential wound in his torso area. Authorities also recovered a cell phone on scene.

The medical examiner's office has not yet determined a cause of death. This incident is being investigated as a suspicious death by SDPD's homicide unit.

Anyone with information is asked to call SDPD or Crime Stoppers at (888)580-8477.

Police are asking for your help to find a man they say is a person of interest in an armed burglary that was interrupted by a construction worker at an Escondido home on Monday.

Escondido police say the suspect broke into the home on Mockingbird Circle—a neighborhood near Safari Park. Just 35 minutes before the burglary, a man matching the suspect's description was recorded through a doorbell camera at Amy Taylor's house across the street around 11 a.m. The signal was transmitted to her husband's smartphone.

In the video, Taylor's husband speaks to the man who asks "Is this the Robinson's residence at 712?"

When Taylor's husband tells the man that he is at the wrong address, the man apologizes and leaves.

More than half an hour later, a suspect with a bandana over his face, wearing dark pants, a blue shirt and tie broke into the house across the street.

Police say the man who rang Taylor's doorbell appears to match the suspect description. Homeowners told NBC 7 the suspect broke a window on the side of the house to get inside.

A construction worker who was remodeling the home encountered the suspect in a hallway. The burglar pulled a gun and then left the house, escaping in a silver Ford Explorer.

The construction worker was not injured.

“It's a nicer neighborhood and it's quiet," Taylor said. "So I think that might bring more people here looking. They see nicer houses and they think they might get some good stuff."

The suspect got away with an old watch, which has little value, police said.

“That's why we have a 180 pound dog and we have a video door bell. That's all we can do,” Taylor said.

The San Diego Chargers will release an economic impact report Tuesday in support of Measure C, the high-profile initiative to build a new stadium for the team in downtown’s East Village.

With Measure C on the Nov. 8 ballot, the team, along with San Diego County’s Building Trades Unions, will make a big push to convince voters that a new downtown Chargers stadium will positively impact San Diego’s economy.

The Economic Impact Study on the proposed multi-use stadium and convention center expansion will be released at 11:30 a.m. The report is expected to detail how many construction and permanent jobs the project would create, plus – according to the Chargers – the impact of the projects construction and operations on regional economic output and labor income.

The news conference comes right after San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer endorsed the measure – with conditions – including the Chargers promising to pay for any cost overruns in the construction phase.

One the other side, detractors of Measure C say the team doesn’t have to live up to those promises because it’s not spelled out in the ballot measure.

Scientists sometimes invent fresh terminology for those astronomically rare events when two exceptional happenings occur at the same time.

Which leads us to this obvious question: Who among us will dream up the perfect name to describe the fact that National Taco Day, a once-a-year holiday, is falling upon that weekly wonder, Taco Tuesday?

For some mavens of meat-filled, lime-laden, tortilla-major meals, this might very well be a major moment of eclipse-like significance. The date in 2016? It's Tuesday, Oct. 4, and a few spots around town will honor the day with specials.

Of course, if your go-to taqueria is merely (and awesomely) doing its thing on Oct. 4, with no discounts listed, be sure to send them some business, too. If the staffers know you love extra cotija, and three shrimp (not two), then spending the most magical of occasions supporting their flavorful mission is the right thing to do.

Or, if you can, carve out a little time on your Oct. 4 to call upon...

The Real Mex Restaurants: A number of eateries in this group are doing it up, so prepare yourself for $1.99 tacos at El Torito (carne asada, chicken, shrimp, and carnitas are on the list), El Torito Grill (which has the same offerings for three bucks a taco), Acalpulco (where the three-dollar goodies include Al Pastor among others), and Who Song and Larry's, which has whole roasted pig on the National Taco Day specials (for three dollars, yep). Oh, and Chevy's? Look for three-buck tacos there, too, on the special day.

Chuy's: Are you a fan of Galactic Tacocat? Score a ten-dollar tee on Oct. 4 with the taco-rocking feline on it. (You can also find that deal on another taco t-shirt.) (Also, everyone knows this, but still: Spell "tacocat" backwards. No, do it.)

Border Grill Santa Monica: While this isn't exactly a National Taco Day doing, best get to this 26-year-old icon pronto, as it is closing, forever, as in bye-bye, on Saturday, Oct. 8 (the lease is up, in short). There are oodles of specials of the savoriest sort, so spending a countrywide day devoted to taco-dom there feels both poignant and snackable (and, yes, an outing can be both).

Casa Vega: So you're working on Oct. 4, but you have Oct. 6 free and you dig this retro Ventura Boulevard gem? It's celebrating its 60th anniversary at lunch that day by offering a 1956 price on a House Combo. Yes, for sure, there's a beef taco in there, and, yes, for sure, the price for the special lunch is $2.15, as it would have been 60 years ago. 

Can you delay your National Taco Day celebrating by 48 hours? We joke, really, because of all the food holidays, many of us look for ways to extend taco-based enjoyment into the days, weeks, and months to come.

True story: People are marking last year's National Taco Day, in spirit and supping, right through to the eve of this year's National Taco Day. For it is true what is often said: Every day is National Taco Day, as it should be.

A 40-foot geyser stemming from a sheared hydrant spewed water all over a street in Otay Mesa Tuesday, causing a mess in the area.

According to San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) officials, a driver crashed into the hydrant just before 9:30 a.m. in the 2300 block of Michael Faraday Drive. The geyser from the hydrant sprayed a significant amount of water in the roadway, damaging some cars, SDFD officials told NBC 7.

Officials with the Otay Water District were called to the scene to help.

By 10:25 a.m., the area was cleared and the ground appeared to be drying up.

No one was injured.

A witness told NBC 7 that an 18-wheeler clipped the hydrant with its trailer as it was pulling into a nearby yard.

Jury selection begins Tuesday in the trial of a man accused of killing a woman at a hotel in downtown San Diego and leaving her body in a common shower area.

Jason Lewis, 41, a registered sex offender with a criminal history that includes sexual battery and felony domestic violence, is accused of killing Jhordann Rust, a 26-year-old woman from Wisconsin, in December 2015 at the 500 West Hotel and Hostel.

Police found the woman’s body in a common shower area on the second floor of the hotel. A witness told NBC 7 that the day before Rust’s slaying, she and Lewis had gotten into an argument in front of the hotel. The pair had met just before her killing.

At a preliminary hearing last December, prosecutors said Lewis took steps to conceal Rust's body, including purchasing a suitcase to apparently move the woman’s body into a community shower area.

Deputy District Attorney Melissa Vasel said Lewis has a criminal record of violent crimes.

Vasel said the circumstances of the slaying of Rust began with the woman and her boyfriend checking into the hotel in downtown San Diego on Dec. 12, 2015. Soon thereafter, Rust's boyfriend was arrested on a domestic violence charge.

Just after midnight on Dec. 13, 2015, Rust's mother called the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) from her home in Wisconsin. She told police her daughter had called her that night, saying she was being attacked by a man named Jason. The mother could overhear a struggle in the background.

Officers performed a welfare check, but could not find Rust.

Two days later, Vasel said police received a report of a woman’s body found at the 500 West Hotel and Hostel. Investigators determined the victim was Rust, and said she had died from strangulation, blunt force trauma or a combination of the two, Vasel said.

They also found a phone belonging to Rust’s boyfriend and a bloody mattress pad near the body.

Officers said evidence led them to zero in on Lewis: witnesses said they saw Lewis and Rust together the night of Dec. 12, 2015, at a 7-Eleven store. That was the last time Rust was seen alive.

After searching Lewis’ room at the hotel, investigators found a bloody mattress and a bloody suitcase.

Police later tracked down surveillance video taken on Dec. 14, 2015, of Lewis purchasing a suitcase at a local store. Vasel said it appeared Lewis used that suitcase he bought to move Rust's  body to the shower area.

Lewis has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Rust. If convicted, he faces 56 years to life in prison.

Students at San Diego State University are being asked to be on alert after a man exposed himself to a woman Monday night on campus.

The woman reported that she was at Storm Hall at the west lower patio just before 5 p.m. when she noticed the man staring “aggressively” at her, according to an SDSU community safety bulletin.

When the man stood up to leave, he exposed himself to her and then left the area, police said. The woman, who was not harmed, notified police.

The man is described as dark skinned, between 20 and 25 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall, with dark short hair, dark eyes and no facial hair. He was last seen wearing a short-sleeved dark blue shirt with white circular designs, gray jean pants and carrying a black backpack.

The safety bulletin asked students to walk in well-lit areas and call 911 to report anyone suspicious.

Anyone with information is asked to call 619-594-1783 and reference case number 16-1319. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can call Crime Stoppers at 619-235-8477.

San Diego Padres icon Tony Gwynn will be inducted into the California Hall of Fame, the governor’s office announced on Monday.

Gwynn joins a group of notable Californians being honored: Former California First Lady Maria Shriver, Hollywood actor Harrison Ford, actor and activist George Takei, author Isabel Allende, social justice advocate Corita Kent and former U.S. Secretary of Defense and nuclear deterrence expert William Perry.

The governor’s office said in a news release that those inducted have “made remarkable achievements in science, philanthropy, sports, business, entertainment, literature, technology, activism and politics.”

The inductees will be celebrated at a ceremony on Nov. 30 at the California Museum in Sacramento.

Gwynn, considered one of the greatest Major League Baseball hitters of all time, spent all of his career with the Padres.

A native of the Los Angeles area, he attended San Diego State University before joining the Padres, and upon his retirement, he resided in Poway.

He died in June 2014 at the age of 54 from salivary gland cancer.

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and other city officials celebrated the start of Domestic Violence Awareness Month on Tuesday with an education and awareness event downtown.

College students, law enforcement, social service agencies and community members, led by Dumanis, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman and San Diego Domestic Violence Council President Jessica Yaffa, gathered at the San Diego Central Library downtown for the event to celebrate the 2016 HOPE Awardees.

Students also held signs with messages of encouragement and hope while speakers read the names of the 18 victims of domestic-violence related homicide in San Diego County in 2015.

The victim count is according to the San Diego Association of Governments’ (SANDAG) Criminal Justice Research Division, which also said that 17,975 domestic violence incidents were reported to county law enforcement throughout all of 2015.

The mark set in 2015 is up 6 percent from 2014, and is a 12 percent increase from what the region saw in 2011.

Of the 18 homicide victims, two were killed during domestic violence disputes involving members of their family. Eight domestic violence offenders died in 2015 as a result of suicide.

Also in attendance were City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, Director of the County Health and Human Service Agency Nick Macchione and Sheriff William D. Gore.

A man accused of posing as a passenger and stealing an employee shuttle filled with workers at the San Diego International Airport will stand trial.

Norberto Eaton, 46, of Arizona, faces kidnapping and false imprisonment with violence charges after he commandeered an airport employee shuttle bus on April 19.

Video played in court Tuesday showed Eaton taking passengers on what one man testified was a terrifying ride. 

In a split-screen video showing the front of the shuttle on one side and passengers on the other, you can Eaton jump up from the back of the shuttle, hop in the driver’s seat and speed off from Terminal 2 at Lindbergh Field with the door open.

A woman in the front seat with a cane can be seen looking for something to hold onto so she won’t fall as she and others are tossed around.

“The rate of speed was excessive,” testified Randal Snyder during Eaton’s preliminary hearing Tuesday. “I was thrown up against the window which I thought was odd. I became concerned. I started looking for my seat belt.”

Investigators say that at one point, Eaton was racing 55 miles per hour down a 25 miles per hour zone on Harbor Drive.

Video shows Eaton going around stopped cars and blowing through a red light near the U.S. Coast Guard station.

One officer who testified about the April hijacking said the accident could have been catastrophic.

In the video, Eaton can be seen motioning to the passengers.

A Harbor Police officer testified he told them, "everything will be fine."

During the ordeal, which lasted more than two minutes, Snyder, one of the two men on board the shuttle, testified that he and the other man looked at each other and decided they were going to do something.

When the shuttle hit traffic near Hawthorne and came to a stop, they jumped the driver and grabbed him.

Snyder says Eaton escaped, but he and the other man were able to shout down a parking enforcement officer, who arrested Eaton.

Snyder explained why he felt compelled to help.

“I started sizing up the situation and noticed we probably had just been hijacked or kidnapped. But I was really concerned at this point in time because I thought this was probably more of terrorist activity than anything else," he said. "I was concerned about my safety as well as everyone else.”

Snyder says he broke a finger trying to grab Eaton. No one else was hurt.

Harbor Police say a bomb sniffing dog didn’t detect anything suspicious.

Eaton is scheduled to make his next court appearance on October 19, 2016.

The American public got to know Sen. Tim Kaine and Gov. Mike Pence during their first and only vice presidential debate at Longwood University Tuesday night.

The candidates are largely unknown to voters, according to the NBC NewsSurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll, and they went head-to-head on taxes, Homeland Security, education, healthcare, Syria and the economy.

At the top of the debate, Pence incorrectly thanked Norwood University for hosting the debate — it was held at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. The gaffe began trending on Twitter. 

Kaine, the Democratic candidate, spent a good deal of his time knocking Pence and the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, for the positions they've staked in the long campaign.

"If you don't know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, you've got to go back to fifth grade civics class," Kaine said, referring to Pence unfavorably comparing President Baracak Obama with Vladimir Putin.

Pence hit back hard, saying that Kaine and his running mate, Hillary Clinton, have made their campaign "an avalanche of insults." 

Trump was live-tweeting throughout the debate; Clinton's account was active as well, though the candidate herself wasn't tweeting.

Here's some of the top tweets in reaction to the vice presidential debate.  

A former executive of a San Diego-based contracting firm pleaded guilty on Tuesday to embezzling more than $835,000 over a period of eight years.

According to a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s office, Stuart Teshima served as the Chief Financial Officer for a local company that provides services such as ship building and repair, nuclear operations support and information technology to the U.S. Department of Defense and other government agencies.

On Tuesday, Teshima admitted that he began the fraud in 2008 until he left the company in August 2015.

Over the course of eight years, Teshima said he used money from the company to pay for personal expenses—including personal travel, gifts for family members, lavish dinners and at one point, his personal income tax bill. During the eight years, Teshima served as a Vice President, Senior Vice President and CFO of the company.

Teshima said he would replace his personal charges on account statements with fake business expenditures and then submit the invoices for reimbursement.

"Corporate insiders and officers owe a special duty of honesty to their employer and its owners. By misusing his senior executive positions for his own personal gain, former CFO Teshima inflicted serious harm on his employer, his fellow employees and defense contracting community," said U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy in a statement.

Teshima may face up to 20 years behind bars, a $250,000 fine, $100 special assessment and pay a restitution of $825,341.

His sentencing is scheduled for December 19.

More than 100 endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs were recently reintroduced to their natural habitat in the San Bernadino Mountains.

San Diego Zoo Global and other conservancy agencies began a captive breeding program in 2007 and have since bred thousands of frogs back into the wild. The latest group is just a portion of more than 1,000 frogs that have been released in 2016.

According to the Zoo, 41 percent of amphibian species are at risk of extinction, making them the earth’s most threatened taxonomic group.

As for the mountain yellow-legged frog, its population has been in steady decline over the last four decades due to drought, pollution and the deadly chytridiomycosis disease caused by the chytrid fungus.

The mountain yellow-legged frog is currently listed as "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act and on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

A particular population of the frog in City Creek, near San Bernadino, was once considered completely extinct, but the success of the breeding program has allowed researchers to make plans to reintroduce tadpoles to the area in 2017.

If researchers can successfully establish a frog population in the area, it would be the first time a group of the species is returned to an area where their population was once extirpated.

The captive breeding program, now in its tenth year, was started by the Zoo and the USGS with the help of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, San Bernadino National Forest, the Oakland Zoo and the Los Angeles Zoo.