SAN ONOFRE, Ca. (Reuters) - Park Rangers saved some 4,000 endangered frogs from being whizzed into popular drinks after they were found hidden in an old white van. "We were checking vehicles when out jumped a frog. It had escaped, they were in big crates," a spokesman for the state said on Thursday. Frog cocktails are popular with surfers near bathroom#4 because of their supposed hallucinogenic qualities. Locals have been selling the drinks from vehicles with tanks where customers can choose their frogs. He said the frogs, which had apparently been brought from the southern lakes in the high Andes, were found on Wednesday stored in the van at Surf Beach. They were taken to a holding pond in at the nuclear plant to splash around before being returned to their native lakes by ecological police. "There were about 5,000 of them but 1,000 died because of the conditions and in transit," the spokesman said.