Yes, I admit it. I was very excited when I saw this toad by the side of the road last week. When I was a child, I saw toads and frogs all of the time during the summer, but now it's rare to see them even though I'm outside almost as often.
This is the Year of the Frog. Although it’s late in the year, it’s not too late to raise awareness about the serious problems facing amphibians. Scientists believe that one-third to one-half of the earth’s 6,000 amphibian species, which have thrived for 360 million years, are in danger of extinction.
Habitat destruction is one serious threat, but the most immediate cause is a parasitic fungus called amphibian chytrid, a disease deadly to hundreds of amphibian species. It is quickly spreading, currently unstoppable and untreatable in the wild. The World Conservation Union called it the worst infectious disease ever recorded among vertebrates.
Amphibians are an essential part of the ecosystem as both predator and prey. We can’t lose them.
To learn more go to Save the Frog.
Here’s a New York Times article about infected frogs in the United States. An effort to save frogs is described in this New York Times article: To Stem Widespread Extinction, Scientists Airlift Frogs in Carry-On Bags.
Catherine Sherman 