A male Gastrotheca cornuta (Marsupial Frog) at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
On the way home from an Amphibian Ark Conservation Needs Assessment workshop in Guatemala, I stopped by Atlanta for a few days, primarily to work with Atlanta-based internet marketing agency, Moxie Interactive (Moxie is helping to redevelop AArk’s web site, but more about that in a future post), but I also took advantage of being in Atlanta to visit the botanical garden.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden (ABG) has been involved in a number of breeding programs for endangered Central American frog species since the late 1990s. They have been successful breeding speices such as Gastrotheca, Anotheca etc. and currently maintain over a hundred animals in various enclosures, both on display in the Fuqua Conservatory, and in off-display breding facilities.
The ABG also makes use of a specially designed “pod” for much of it’s breeding efforts. The pod has been created from an un-used shipping container, and was modelled closely on the original amphibian pod designed by Gerry Marantelli from the Amphibian Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia. You can read more about amphibian containers on the AArk web site.
The inside of the frog pod at the Atlanta Botanic Gardens
I’d like to thank ABG Amphibian Specialist, Robert, for taking the time to show me around the amphiban facilities, and I would strongly encourage people to pay a visit to the ABG to learn more about their very successful amphibian conservation program.
February 23, 2010 at 2:50 am
The planning and building of the amphibian pod at ABG was my last project there, finishing in July 2008 before I left the garden to take on the Training Officer Position with Amphibian Ark. Robert and I had a great time getting that container ready for frogs and we should also mention the help of Dante Fenolio in the planning and fundraising and of course, the project would not have come to fruition without the generous support of Claire and Bill Simmons and Cindy Jeness, who believed in our program at the Garden and helped to make this dream a reality!
May 12, 2011 at 3:16 pm
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