Leaping long-toed salamanders, Batman! We need your help to save the nearly 2,000 amphibian species that are currently threatened with
extinction. That's one-third of all known species of frogs, toads,
salamanders, newts, and caecilians across the globe. And the status of the
other two-thirds ain't
looking so hot either.
Small wonder, too, what with an unprecedented onslaught of amphib-unfriendly human activities: habitat destruction and alteration, climate change, pollution, and now a mysterious but devastatingly fatal skin-infecting disease caused by the chytrid fungus, which has spread to every continent but Asia and Antarctica. Things haven't looked this bad for such a major group of species since the dinos went all fossil-fuel on us 65 million years ago. Except back then, amphibians survived -- only to meet their match today.
Thank goodness naturalists and zookeepers had the foresight to capitalize on 2008 being a Leap Year to publicize this plight by declaring it the Year of the Frog.
And with today being Leap Day, over 70 zoos and aquariums are holding frog-themed events this weekend to raise awareness about the critical state of the world's amphibians. So find a frog fest near you. Some of the herp-happy fun you can get in on includes:
- An amphibian scavenger hunt (note: no actual amphibians scavenged) as well as demos of the effects of pollution on frog eggs, at New York Zoos and Aquarium.
- A "Frog Hop Dance/Population Biology Study" at the Phoenix Zoo. (Think musical chairs but with ponds that disappear from drought and a surprise invasive bullfrog at game's end.)
- A jumping contest (you vs. the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County) at the North Carolina Zoo.
- And in conjunction with the Detroit Zoo,
local citizens are heeding the call of the
wildfrogs in an ongoing effort to survey local frog populations via bimonthly call surveys of nearby wetlands.
But don't think the frogger love stops there. You can continue your education and support of local and global amphibians by contacting nearby zoos, aquariums, and wildlife centers about educational programs; volunteering with community conservation groups; restoring degraded wetlands; voting and petitioning to protect interconnected habitat at home and abroad; and donating to amphibian conservation projects, such as Amphibian Ark, which aids captive breeding and research programs.
Whether you love or loathe the slippery little suckers, however, shouldn't shield you from acknowledging why protecting them is advantageous for even the most devout worshiper of concrete jungles.
According to Simon Stuart, lead researcher of the Global Amphibian Assessment:
Since most amphibians depend on fresh water and feel the effects of pollution before many other forms of life, including humans, their rapid decline tells us that one of Earth's most critical life support systems is breaking down.
Amphibian Ark chairman, Jeffrey Bonner, sums up the importance of biodiversity in 26 words: "Each time you lose a species it's like popping a rivet on an airplane. Who cares? If you lose too many rivets, the wing falls off."
But besides being bioindicators of global ecological health and possibly providing a breakthrough in AIDS treatment (oh, is that all?), amphibians also serve as great metaphors for our current climate crisis. (Even if the boiling frog is an urban myth.)
A frog in water Doesn't feel it boil in time. Dude, we are that frog.
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Comments
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caniscandida Posted 7:11 pm
29 Feb 2008
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Frogs and toads provide one of the greatest success stories on Earth. They have lived on every continent whenever suitable habitat was available. They developed a magnificent and unique form of locomotion -- the flying leap. In learning how to hop, their forearms and hind legs developed for propulsion, and to help them absorb the shock of landing. The hip bones elongated, the remaining tail vertebrae fused, the ankle bones grew longer, the spine grew shorter, and the ribs minimized and eventually vanished entirely. And they developed a movable joint, unique to frogs, that lets the pelvis slide up and down the backbone. All these adaptations permit the frog to make, and survive, the explosive leap used to evade capture and catch food.
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Presumably the loss of the tail itself is among these adaptations. In many cultures, the taillessness of frogs, and the much reduced tails of bears, have been interpreted as signs of a special affinity between frogs and bears and human beings.
In the Greek classics, frogs are for the most part not presented favorably. In Aristophanes' comedy "The Frogs," the frog-chorus would seem to stand for the somnolent, deadening tastes associated with uninspired pop-culture. In the recent adaptation of that comedy by Stephen Sonheim and Nathan Lane, the frogs seem actually to terrify poor Dionysus, sensitive god of poetry and tasteful intoxication.
Alluding to that Greek background, our own much-admired Henry David Thoreau, toward the end of the "Sounds" chapter of "Walden," writes at some length about the bullfrogs trumpeting their circulating song of "tr-r-r-ooo-n-k," without making the experience sound very pleasant. But there are green frogs and leopard frogs in Walden Pond too, and they no doubt sang more sweetly back in the 1840s, as they do today.
More seriously, Beltz also writes:
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Fungi are far and away the biggest threat to global amphibian health .... As with many new diseases, chytrid is acting like a virulent pathogen wiping out everything in its path.
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It is important that we not consider the loss of amphibian species in an anthropocentric way. Many frogs are very cute, IMHO, especially the tree frogs and the poison frogs; but others are much more forbidding; and our experience with the cane toad (also marine toad; Bufo marinus) has been most unpleasant, in places where we short-sightedly introduced it.
But our aesthetics do not really matter. The three great taxa of amphibians, caecilians, salamanders and frogs, are remarkable vertebrates, uniquely adapted to their ecosystems. The world is poorer, as they die off, and as their species disappear.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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