Best wishes,

Kevin

Anyone saving frogs is on the top list of my personal book. I’ll give exposure to your blog on my web site and magazine in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I thought you might appreciate my reflection on frogs:

http://www.animalsvoice.com/moretti/lessons.html

Laura

Hi Glenn, thanks for your thoughts. I like the way you think! You might be surprised to learn though that the fungus is surprisingly sensitive to its environment and would not survive passage through a bird. We have speculated about the possibility that it is moved on such vectors as bird feet and feathers, biologists’ boots, etc., but at the end of the day, its rate of progression can be perfectly explained by mere frog-to-frog contact as they interact in their respective home ranges. But thanks for your creative thinking; that is exactly the sort of thing that will someday give us the solutions we seek!

The progress of the infection in the western hemisphere seems remarkably parallel to that of migrating birds.

Has it been examined whether the fungus can survive in the digestive system of birds and thus be redeposited in new, previously unaffected areas?

The pattern of infestation seems to jump between head water pools and not only to down stream locations. Similarly, other infestations seem to jump from one area to another but not necessarily to adjacent locations. This pattern might suggest a non-land based form of transmission.

None of the literature that I’ve seen would seem to show that transmission by migrating birds has been investigated.