The Kihansi spray toad is now extinct in the wild

The Kihansi spray toad used to live in the spray region of the Kihansi waterfall, in Tanzania, and relied heavily on the spray from the waterfall to maintain a constant temperature and humidity in its environment. But due to the construction of a dam which funded by the World Bank, the waterfall has been disrupted, and the Kihansi spray toad has recently been declared Extinct in the Wild.

A number of small populations of this species exist in US zoos, and in spit of several setbacks with the initial population of 500 animals that were collected, the current population now sits at around 470 animals.

How many more species will become extinct in the wild, relying entirely on ex situ “ark” populations for their survival, before we start to take better care of our planet and ALL of its inhabitants?

More information on the Kihansi spray toad can be found here.

 

More than 17,000 species threatened by extinction

Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frog. Photo: Brad Wilson.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has just released its 2009 Red List, and it includes over 17,000 species that are currently threatened by extinctin. The Red List is a comprehensive, global approach for evaluating the conservation status of animal and plant species. This method of evaluation began in 1994, and forthcoming Red List workshops will now include the Amphibian Ark’s Conservation Needs Assessment process to evaluate and prioritize amphibians for the specific conservation needs.

The 2009 list contains 1,895 amphibian species that are threatened due to deforestation, climate change, disease and other factors.

The Kihansi spray toad of southern Tanzania is now thought to be extinct in the wild. A dam upstream of Kihansi Falls has dried up the gorge where it lived, and an aggressive fungal disease known as chytridiomycosis appears to have pushed the toad population over the edge, the group said.

The same fate could soon befall the unusually large Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog, which glides through the forest using its big webbed feet to steer safely to the ground. It is the only known frog species where the tadpoles feed off skin shed by the male while he guards the young.

The chytrid fungus that causes chytridiomycosis reached central Panama in 2006, a year after scientists first discovered the tree frog. Since then the fungus — believed to be spread by international trade and global warming — has virtually wiped out the wild frog population.

Click here for the full article about the 2009 Red List update.

 

Take all amphibian species, divide by two, and that’s not as many that are hurt by global warming

The math is astounding, staggering, sobering, disheartening, and maddening, but we need to react with determination, anger, confidence, and donations to Amphibian Ark. More details are coming out on IUCN’s announcement of the major threats facing all animal life. I just posted about the fact that one in four mammals being threatened. Well, now we learn that MORE THAN TWO IN FOUR AMPHIBIANS ARE BEING HARMED BY GLOBAL WARMING. That fits hand-in-glove with the studies showing that up to half of all amphibian species are hopping toward extinction. Here’s an excerpt from the write-up on peopleandplanet.net:

The study found 3,217 of the 6,222 amphibians in the world are likely to be susceptible to climate change. Three salamander families are could be particularly susceptible, while 80-100 percent of Seychelles frogs and Indian Burrowing Frogs, Australian ground frogs, horned toads and glassfrog families were assessed as susceptible.

 

The elephant in the room about the only animal with better news

The African elephant has been “upgraded” to “near threatened from the bleaker “vulnerable” list. And that’s about the rosiest take from the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, where the annual Red List oof Endangered Species was announced. The grabber this year is that one in four mammals is threatened due to habitat loss, hunting, and global warming.

The Congress also issued the reminder of why 2008 has been called the Year of the Frog and why Amphibian Ark was created: at least one-third (most say up to one-half) of amphibian species could go extinct in our lifetime unless emergency measures are taken. Here’s the excerpt from The New York Times:

“Although 5 percent of mammals are recovering, what we observe are rates of habitat loss and hunting in Southeast Asia, Central Africa and Central and South America that are so serious that the overall rate of decline has steadily increased during the past decade,” Mr. Schipper said.

Amphibians, too, are facing an extinction crisis, with at least 33 percent either threatened or extinct, the I.U.C.N. reported.

Holdridge’s toad, found only in Costa Rica, was declared extinct. The Cuban crocodile, illegally hunted for its meat and skin, was moved to the critically endangered category.

Making the list for the first time were Indian tarantulas, highly prized by collectors and threatened by the international pet trade. The Rameshwaram parachute spider, whose habitat has been eroded by new roads, was found to be critically endangered. The spiders’ “natural habitat has been almost completely destroyed,” the group said.

Not every part of the report was bleak. The African elephant was removed from the vulnerable list and was listed as “near threatened,” although its status varied depending on location. The I.U.C.N. said increases in the population of the elephants in southern and eastern Africa were big enough to offset any decreases taking place elsewhere.

 

Amphibians worst off among threatened animal classes

Paleontologist Michael Novacek’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post discusses what’s being called the Sixth Great Extinction. His article lists the animal classes that are in the greatest danger, and once again the amphibian is, unfortunately, at the top of the list:

“In 2007, of 41,415 species assessed for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, 16,306 (39 percent) were categorized as threatened with extinction: one in three amphibians, one quarter of the world’s pines and other coniferous trees, one in eight birds and one in four mammals. “

It doesn’t have to happen, though, as those familiar with Amphibian Ark know.

 

Following California fires, toad missing from 75 percent of habitat

Story out of California regarding captive breeding reports that following the California wildfires, the Arroyo toad is missing from 75 percent of the habitat where it’s normally found. This is the type of situation that the network of zoos, aquariums, and conservation groups with Amphibian Ark studies. A while back, a post here mentioned that the Arroyo toad is typically resilient to wildfires. Yet, the Arroyo toad — Bufo californicus — is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List.

 

A terrific overview of the amphibian crisis

Why are frogs disappearing? What can you do about it? There are snippets of Kevin Zippel’s speech at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival posted earlier today. But here’s the complete speech. Definitely worth passing along.

 

Climate change and the sixth major extinction event

The U.N. conference on climate change in Bali is generating a flurry of headlines that should make the biodiversity camp jealous.  It’s a boisterous, argumentative, messy, emotional cacaphony — but from a satellite view, we can take heart that the crisis is being discussed, and progress being made.  (The Convention on Biological Diversity Web site has a news page where you can track stories from the conference.) According to Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the conference: ”The outcome of this conference will, to a degree, determine whether Bali — and other vulnerable places — are destined to become a lost paradise, or not. If the outcome of this conference keeps pace with the many positive political signals of the past year, we are on a good road to preventing a lost paradise.” Another threatened paradise discussed at the conference is the Amazon forest. The WWF announced that 60 percent of the Amazon could be lost by 2030 because of global warming and deforestation.

Reading all of the stories coming from Bali, and reading much less about the dire plight of animal life, I was reminded of a Jack Nicholson line in the movie, “As Good As It Gets.” Jack’s character is pleading with a friend to help him think through a personal crisis, and when the friend’s advice isn’t helpful, Jack bellows: “I’m drowning here, and you’re describing the water!” (And what about the Elvis verse, “A little less talk, a little more action”?) Imagine either line being croaked by a frog, the last in a species, covered in chytrid somewhere in South America, that somehow was able to read the news out of Bali.

The irony is this: Climate change is heating up earth’s sixth major extinction event, but we can’t get enough people focused on the biodiversity crisis because they’re concentrating on climate change. It’s not a complaint. Just the situation we’re in.

 

Europe, Middle East species first in line for Amphibian Ark

Amphibian Ark has started providing me with lists of the species most in need of being placed in protective custody — meaning, they can’t be saved in the wild and need to be placed with zoos and other host locations before they disappear. Here’s the first installment — the European “highest priority” list.

As funds become available, the species listed below will be among the first to hop onto the Ark. Click on the species name and you’ll go to a page that tells more. 

EUROPE

Neurergus kaiseri (Luristan newt) — Iran

Rana cf. holzi (Taurus frog) — Turkey

Alytes muletensis (Mallorcan midwife toad)– Spain

Neurergus microspilotus (salamander) — Iran/Iraq/Turkey border

Batrachuperus gorganensis (Gorgan salamander) — Iran

Liciasalamandra billae (salamander) — Turkey

Pelobates varaldii (Varaldi’s spadefoot toad)  – Morocco

Euproctus platycephalus (Sardinian brook salamander) – Italy

Proteus anguinus parkelj (Black olm) — Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Slovenia

Discoglossus montalenti (Corsican painted frog) — Corsica

…

Once in their biosecure facility, their new home, the species will be bred under the care of experts. Amphibian Ark falls under the auspices of the IUCN Amphibian Conservation Action Plan, so as each species multiplies, the root problems for its near extinction will be analyzed by a bigger scientific team, hopefully resulting in breakthroughs so that the species can return to the wild.

 

Can this acronym do for biodiversity what IPCC has done for global warming?

It’s been reported that the urgency of biodiversity takes a back seat to the urgency of climate change, with much of the credit going to the one-two punch of a science story telling machine called IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and a powerful narrator, Al Gore.  The biodiversity camp is following suit now with plans for its own fact-based story vehicle (and acronym), IMoSEB, or the International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity. Its steering committee just wrapped up a meeting in Montpellier, France, two days ago, and a summary of the meeting just popped on the Internet.  For those who care about amphibians, or any threatened species, this is necessary reading.  Below, I’ll first paste  the official “final outcome” section. Later, I’ll paste some meeting notes that show some of the interesting questions raised earlier in the meeting. The point is, the scientists for whom animals and plants are Job One are trying hard to grab our attention and that of our governments, and challenge all of us to increase our mindshare for biodiversity. Memo to IMoSEB: please hurry.

• “Final Outcome: In its Statement, the IMoSEB International Steering Committee recommends … establishment of a means, and enhancement of existing institutions, to provide an objective source of information about biodiversity change and its impacts on ecosystem services and human well-being, via a range of activities, including:

  • building on and promoting periodic global and sub-global assessments of the state of, and trends in, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and their effects on human well-being at multiple spatial scales;

  • undertaking or promoting special studies on emerging issues of importance to biodiversity, particularly those which are transnational and/or cross-cultural in nature;

  • contributing to rapid and authoritative scientific information on biodiversity-related emergencies at short time scales; and

  • promoting the development of the capacity to generate and use the information, methodology and techniques required to accomplish the above objectives.”

OK, this isn’t in Al Gore’s “real people” language yet, but it’s a start! I thought the meeting notes describing the debates earlier in the meeting were illuminating:

• “On improved communication, a participant from the media questioned the role that an IMoSEB might play in ensuring that biodiversity enters the “core” of the news agenda, as climate change has.”

• “A broad consensus emerged that the links between biodiversity and human well-being should be a key focus, with several participants cautioning against a purely conservation-based ideology.”

• “He (not sure who “he” is) argued that if the mechanism is to successfully place biodiversity on the global agenda, it should report to the UN General Assembly …  Several participants suggested alternative institutional homes, including: the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; and the UN Development Programme. One participant argued that administration of an IMoSEB should be devolved to multiple UN bodies because many of them are involved in the different aspects of biodiversity.”

• “One participant proposed adding a reference to the need to promote the linkages between biodiversity, climate change and environmental pollution in order to signal to other conventions the biodiversity community’s willingness to collaborate.”

• “The debate focused on recommending the establishment of a means to provide an objective source of information about biodiversity change and its impact on ecosystem services and human well-being … “