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.

Last week, I was thrilled to be working with Dr. Roberto Ibanez from the Smithsonian Institute and Heidi Ross and Edgardo Griffith, from the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center, to administer a three-day husbandry essentials workshop in El Valle de Anton, Panama.

Consulting instructors Allan Pessier (San Diego Zoo), Brad Wilson (Veterinarian, Atlanta), Robert Hill (Atlanta Botanical Garden) and Joe Mendelson (Zoo Atlanta) also attended and participated in lectures and hand’s on demonstrations aimed at training staff and students in the essential husbandry techniques for maintaining assurance populations of endangered amphibians at facilities in Panama.

The collaborative efforts of the Panamanian Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project (www.amphibianrescue.org) being launched at the Summit Zoo outside of Panama city aims to rescue dozens of species utilizing biosecure shipping containers and down the line to provide animals for important chytrid research in situ. Working at this facility, some of the students participating in this workshop will become the next stewards of panamanian amphibians.

Scientists have unravelled the mechanism by which the fungal disease chytridiomycosis kills its victims.

The BBC reports that a group of scientists has published an article in the journal Science that chytrid fungus kills by changing the electrolyte balance of animals, resulting in cardiac arrest. Chytrid, which was discovered in 1998, is one of the major killers of amphibians across the globe, along with habitat destruction and climate change. Curing amphibians in captivity can now be done using antifungal chemicals, but there is currently no way of treating the disease in wild populations.

If scientists can now discover more about how the elctrolyte balance is disrupted, they may also ultimately, discover a way to reduce the mortality rate in wild amphibian populations.

Rhinoderma darwinii. Photo by Mono Andes

Just back from a very quick but productive trip to Santiago and Concepcion to see the current breeding facilities for Darwin’s Frog Rhinoderma darwinii. This unique species was historically found in many places in Chile and Argentina but habitat loss and other pressures have worked to dwindle its numbers. The only other species of Darwin’s Frog Rhinoderma rufum has not been seen in many years and continues to elude field researchers. Both exhibit forms of parental care with the male carrying tadpoles in it’s vocal sack.  

Korean scientists have recently discovered chytrid fungus in introduced bullfrogs in South Korea, although so far, this does not appear to be having an impact on South Korean amphibians. There are thirteen frog and five salamander species in the country, which boats 65 percent of natural forest cover.

Pierre Fidenci, President of Endangered Species International (ESI), talks about the state of amphibians in South Korea in an interview with Mongabay.com, and there is an additional report on The Korean Times web site. In his interview on mongabay.com, Pierre also says:

We put our focus depending on the degree of urgency (not all endangered species have the same degree of extinction, some are much more threatened), our experience and expertise, and the location (we tend to go to places where no other conservation NGOs work). We focus on endangered species found in various types of habitat and serving as protecting umbrella to other endangered species and various wild habitat.

In a similar vein, Amphibian Ark staff have been using an “amphibian species prioritization” process, which is now known as a conservation action planning process  to work with amphibian experts around the world to document their collective knowledge, to produce ordered lists of conservation action required to help save threatened species.

I have written two posts on atrazine, the common herbicide. One post  mentioned a report that atrazine affects organ development in frogs. The other refers to a study showing that frogs’ immune systems are suppressed when exposed to atrazine.  Now there is a report by the Huffington Post that atrazine levels in human drinking water exceed federal safety limits in four states.

Records that tracked the amount of the weed-killer atrazine in about 150 watersheds from 2003 through 2008 were obtained by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund under the Freedom of Information Act. An analysis found that yearly average levels of atrazine in drinking water violated the federal standard at least ten times in communities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas, all states where farmers rely heavily on the herbicide.

Frogs are the canaries in the coal mine, remember? It’s best not to ignore the canaries. The frogs warned us, and those warnings are not being heeded.

I remember reading how the ecosytem of North America’s midwestern prairie changed when buffalo were killed off in the 1800s. Buffalo dung, in particular, was a key part of the ecosytem and affected wildlife and vegetation. Which brings us to the discovery that Asian elephants in Sri Lanka have been propping up the amphibian population in that arid land — by creating dung piles in which several species of amphibians can live. Full story HERE.

I w rote this for my firm’s sustainability blog. Thought you frog lovers might appreciate, too.

That was then: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. – Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee

This is now: Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table. – Comments at a town hall meeting, by Rep. Barney Frank

I wonder how Atticus, the selfless public defender in To Kill A Mockingbird, would fare in today’s polarized discourse and in this age of the sound bite. (Then again, he didn’t need much income; Scout, after all, was fine being shoeless.)

But just when you want to give up on the whole idea of finding a common ground, along comes sustainability. We don’t agree on sweeping topics, like global warming. But we will agree to recycle bottles and lower our thermostats. We won’t get on the same page about public welfare, but we will drop our dollars into the Salvation Army kettle. National healthcare, no. Taking walks, yes.

Sustainability is where the actions can have universal appeal, but the participants associate them with different goals. When a supermarket installs an aluminum can bin, very few of us will consciously walk past it to throw a soda can into the trash. We’ll use the bin. But why did the company put the bin there in the first place? To be socially responsible, or to keep the parking lot from looking trashy? Or to get some income from the recycling company? And why do we use the bin? To save the planet? Or to avoid waste and conserve resources? Your personal slant on the world will determine the answer.

And yet your viewpoint really doesn’t matter, because sustainability has you doing the same things as other people with whom you would never agree.

And from this viewpoint, promoting sustainability might just be the most unifying activity an organization can ever take.

The connection between frog deformities and pesticides and herbicides has been reported a lot. But here is a new study by Southern Illinois University in Carbondale that shows how little it really takes to harm amphibians. Imagine there was a pool of water in a farm pond that had the presence of only a trace (0.0000000003*) of pesticide ingredient edosulfan. That would be enough to kill half of the pond’s frog population. Take the 3 and make it 8, and every frog dies. Here’s the news release explaining the study:http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/555153/?sc=rssn (*Double check my decimal conversion. What I’m attempting to show is 0.3 parts per billion.)

An excerpt from the release:

The foothill yellow-legged frog is especially susceptible to the chemicals such as endosulfans, which kill by essentially overloading the nervous system and rendering breathing muscles useless. Europe and Australia each have banned the use of the chemical as a pesticide, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also is studying the issue, Sparling said.

Sparling is optimistic humans can find ways to both farm on a large enough scale to feed the population and protect non-pest animals.

“To produce crops to provide for the world we have to use pesticides, and I’m not anti-pesticide,” he said. “But it’s important for us as scientists, agriculturalists and environmental protectors to make sure we continue developing pesticides that are as protective as possible of non-target animals as can be, both in the chemicals we use and application methods.”

Click link below for video

You have to see this video from BBC showing tadpoles swarming their mom to feast on her infertile eggs. This rare glimpse is something you wouldn’t be able to see if it weren’t for the captive breeding programs of organizations to save endangered species. It’s all connected to the umbrella program of Amphibian Ark.

Excerpts from the story:

The remarkable footage was recorded at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, in Jersey, which took in 12 of the rescued frogs. Twenty-six others went to Parken Zoo in Sweden, and 12 are now housed in ZSL London Zoo.

“We thought that the eggs would come out and drop to the bottom of the nest and then the tadpoles would start eating them. But the footage shows about 40 tadpoles congregating around the female and eating the eggs as they come out of the female’s body.”