Frog Matters

 It’s heartening to see a major Flickr group like Voices in the Wilderness create a vault of wonderful amphibian photos to support Amphibian Ark and Year of the Frog. Here’s link to their page.

This just in from Leipzig, Germany:  Xenia von Sachsen, Princess of Saxony, kisses a frog and argues for “the same kind of environmental lobbying as ocean mammals or big cats.” From the press release:

Today, one hundred primary-school pupils and twenty kindergarten children experienced an unusual, contemporary version of the fairy tale ‘The Frog Prince’ at Leipzig Zoo: there was a visit by Xenia, Princess of Saxony, who has a soft spot for amphibians, and who demonstrated this to the children by giving a frog a symbolic kiss. The twenty-one-year-old was at the zoo as a celebrity ambassador for the ‘2008 – Year of the Frog’ campaign, at the invitation of the zoo director, Dr Junhold.

‘The princess represents dynamism and a forward-looking approach’ said Jörg Junhold, explaining why a young princess was chosen for the initiative, to draw attention to amphibian extinction across the world. In taking part, the princess joins in with the efforts made by Sir David Attenborough, who is the patron of the global amphibian campaign and has already been able to take on board personalities such as Jean-Michel Cousteau and Jane Goodall. ‘Frogs should be given the same kind of environmental lobbying as ocean mammals or big cats’, said Xenia, Princess of Saxony, who found out on the spot which amphibian projects Leipzig Zoo supports. The zoo currently has twelve species of amphibians, two of which are categorised as ‘endangered’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN): the Blue Poison Dart Frog and the Vietnamese Salamander. Both species can be seen in the ‘Arche’ (Ark) discovery centre, where visitors’ attention is also drawn to the amphibian crisis.

The topic of amphibian protection has never been so relevant. Of the roughly 6,000 frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians known today, thirty to fifty per cent are at risk of extinction. This makes amphibians the most endangered category of vertebrate at present. The reasons for the rapid extinction of the species are environmental pollution, climate change and the increasing destruction of their habitats, as well as the introduction of foreign species and a parasitic chytrid fungus. This fungus, originally only indigenous to South Africa, is spreading at lightning speed through Central and South America and Australia. It attacks the amphibians’ sensitive skin. Wherever the infection proliferates, up to eighty per cent of animals die within only a few months, which can have a devastating effect on ecological communities.

Amphibians are prominently featured in a new book that explains how a loss of biodiversity hurts medicine. The book, “Sustaining Life: How Human Life Depends On Biodiversity,” was written by Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein from the Center of Health and the Global Environment of the Harvard Medical School. The forward was written by Edward O. Wilson. Below are excerpts from a Reuters news story. But the bottom line is this: put these endangered species on “the ark” — the rescue program directed through Amphibian Ark — or lose more medical breakthroughs that would improve the human condition.

A salute to the press release writer for the Auckland, New Zealand, City Council. Hadn’t seen the word “frogtastic” yet!

Auckland City Council Media release

Frogtastic holiday fun at Auckland Zoo

Leap into the zoo these school holidays, 19 April to 4 May, for a frog-filled fun day out and support International Year of the Frog.

Auckland Zoo knows “it’s not easy being green” and has enlisted Princess Lily, Prince Archey and Cadbury Freddo Frog to create some frogabulous fun for zoo goers. Kids can test their frog skills by hopping along the frog footprints into the zoo and playing leapfrog and hopscotch - with great prizes to be won!

Prince Archey, frog prince and frog expert, is on a mission, and needs help during the two free daily interactive shows (10.45am and 11.45am) in the Grasslands Theatre. Enjoy all the fun of an old time pantomime as Cadbury Freddo Frog, Princess Lily and Prince Archey demonstrate why frogs are such amazing amphibians - especially our own New Zealand native frogs.

Kidzone transforms into Frog Central for the holidays. There’ll be a daily frog talk (1pm), where zookeepers will share their love of frogs and give kids the chance to see frogs up close. Kids will also have the chance to unleash their inner frog by making a wearable frog mask.

Everyone can help frogs by purchasing an ASB Kashin Dollar. Each dollar goes to the Amphibian Ark Year of the Frog campaign to support the plight of frogs around the world and in New Zealand. Along with helping frogs, each dollar comes with a cool treat, and the chance to win some jumbo sized prizes, including the grand prize - a $500 Leapfrog prize pack from iQ Toys. There will also be daily prize packs to be won, courtesy of iQ Toys, and other great spot prizes.

“Frogs are toadily cool and we want to get zoo goers jumping with joy, croaking their praises and raising money to help them,” says Auckland Zoo events coordinator, Jackie Sanders.

“After thriving for over 360 million years, a third of the world’s 6300 amphibian species are now threatened with extinction. Frogs play a vital role in our ecosystem, benefit agriculture and minimise the spread of diseases, including malaria,” says Ms Sanders.

ENDS

On this morning after Earth Day, check out the new campaign by Amphibian Ark to mobilize people so that we can stop the mass extinction of amphibians. Here’s the news release and fact sheet. Here are 50 ways we can help.

And if you’d like to sign the petition, here’s the link.

So for Earth Day, how can our amphibian friends help teachers and home school parents instill the right lessons in our children? Here are some good resources:

National Geographic offers a “Frog Alert! Frog Alert!” lesson plan online. It’s designed for kindergarten through second grade, and it focuses on the effects of water pollution.

Go to a nearby stream and clean up a small section by removing garbage. (But be safe.) Here’s a thought providing activity that the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. did this weekend. As you do the cleanup, you can explain what pollution in our waterways does to amphibians.

Here’s a slew of kid-friendly PowerPoint presentations, courtesy of theteachersguide.com.

There’s a kid-friendly lesson on how to draw a frog here.

And, even a lesson plan on tadpole-to-frog developmental stages using clay and Crayola markers.

Finally, spend some time on the Amphibian Ark Web site to explain the dangers facing amphibians, and have the child sign the online petition.

And, come back later this month for more ideas on how your child can help save the frog. Something big is being planned.

ScienceDaily has summarized a new study published in Environmental Health Perspectives that shows atrazine harms the development of organs, such as the heart, in baby amphibians.  Other studies have pointed to problems that the common weed killer has caused with other stages of development, but this is the first to study the impact on organ morphogenesis, or organ development. The scientists did the experiment on Xenopus laevis, or African clawed frogs. That species is the one that was shipped around the world in the 1930s and 1940s for human pregnancy tests – and unwittingly carried with it the amphibian chytrid fungus. You decide if that’s ironical.

Just in time for Earth Day: Check out this educational video game from the Vancouver Aquarium. Frogster challenges the gamer to protect amphibians from all of their biggest foes, including pollution and chytrid fungus. Among many other activities created by zoos and aquariums, this is a great way to get kids wondering, learning, caring, and helping.

I did a post a few days ago about the real tragedy of frogs crossing roads.

“Death is not an acceptable exit strategy.”  

I overheard this on a US Airways flight from Charlotte to St. Louis tonight:

The line was uttered by one insurance executive to another, in the row right behind me. The more knowledgeable of the two was explaining that when a “client” (that’s you or me) takes out a loan on his life insurance, he must pay off the loan within seven years. This particular insurance company won’t allow the loan term to be stretched any longer; otherwise, the odds increase that the person will die before the debt is fully paid. That would mean that the balance of the loan would have to be paid from the life insurance policy’s death benefit. And this insurance company doesn’t want that to happen. Hence, the “exit strategy” of paying the debt after one dies is “unacceptable.”

Well, thank you, insurance executive. You inspired an Earth Day post for the frogs. 

If death is not an acceptable exit strategy in the world of life insurance loans, then extinction is an unacceptable exit strategy for the 2,000-plus species of frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians that are projected to disappear in our lifetime. If unchecked, this will be the most significant loss of animal life since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

It would be easy to follow the example of the actuarians and simply present these frogs with a contract stipulating that they have to fix their problem in seven years. But frogs wouldn’t understand all the legal jargon. And, anyway, they really can’t be expected to get themselves out of the pickle jar we’ve put them in.

The truth is, we’re the ones who have taken out a massive loan. By living the way we live, we’ve been borrowing against the future sustainability of the planet and the creatures that live on it. And as frogs are regarded as the canaries in the coal mine for our planet’s health, their looming mass exodus has given us our clearest warning yet that we have to pay down our loan, and quickly.

So, on this Earth Day, think about signing a seven-year contract with yourself — and for the frogs — to fix all that you can.

A huge part of the debt to amphibians could be paid off in that timeframe. There is a no-nonsense plan, called Amphibian Ark, that will place the 500 most threatened species into the “protective custody” of zoos and other conservation organizations. Species are disappearing as you are reading this.

The Amphibian Ark plan will put these species into protective “arks” — i.e., biosecure containers that will:

1. protect endangered species from environmental threats that include the frog-killing chytrid fungus, pollution, loss of habitat, and global warming

2. help these “last frogs standing” to breed for their eventual return to the wild

3. allow scientists to find a cure for chytrid through research conducted in the containers

4. buy time for other conservation efforts to restore amphibian habitat around the world — so there’s a home to return to

You can sign the contract, in a way, by signing this online petition to protect amphibians. Then, stay tuned, because right after Earth Day we’re going to come back to you with a list of things you can do to save the frogs. If everybody would pick just one thing to do, it would add up to a lot. It would be like paying extra against the principal on the loan we’ve taken out.

Say it over and over to yourself: Extinction is not an acceptable exit strategy. Thanks to amphibians, we have a real opportunity to start paying off our debt. Let’s hop to it.

And, if those insurance executives are reading this, I hope I haven’t offended you. I meant no harm. In fact, we could use your talents to raise the $50-$60 million needed to complete the Amphibian Ark physical plan. Maybe you could come up with a seven-year strategy for that.