Amphibian Extinction Crisis

Amphibians around the world are dying rapidly – in what threatens to become the largest mass extinction since the dinosaurs. This amphibian extinction crisis is unlike anything the modern world has faced, and the scientific community must be empowered to immediately respond to this emergency.

Not only are frogs and other amphibians themselves threatened (so many of which are extraordinary beautiful creatures – which also have incredible medicinal value for humans) – but if great numbers of amphibians are wiped out, countless animals which eat amphibians will be threatened. Indeed, the sheer biomass that amphibians (& their eggs & tadpoles) represent in the food chain is enormous: they are a vital food for a great many animals, such as snakes, birds, reptiles, fish, wild cats and other small mammals. Simultaneously, masses of insects which amphibians usually eat will see their populations skyrocket, such as mosquitoes which spread malaria, and numerous insects which destroy human crops.

Chemical substances unique to frog’s skin and other amphibian organs also show great tangible promise for medicinal drugs which can help humans.

Amphibians include frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians. They are vertebrates that spend part of their lives under water (breathing with gills) and the remainder on land (breathing with lungs).

Biologists have documented that a fungus called Chytrid (Chytridiomycosis) is spreading through amphibian populations worldwide, and is causing them to die off rapidly. A population of millions of frogs can be wiped out by Chytrid fungus in only a matter of weeks after this fungus infects a frog population. All amphibians are susceptible to this fungus, which has caused dramatic population declines, and already some extinctions, of amphibian species in North America, Central America, South American, Australia, and elsewhere. The fungus continues to spread rapidly to new countries with deadly results – and amphibian populations are indeed disappearing from habitats around the world. Many ponds once loud with the sound of frogs calls, are now silent.

Unfortunately, in addition to their vulnerability to Chrytrid fungus, amphibians have proved to be perhaps the most vulnerable creatures on Earth to human pollution and use of chemicals, overall human encroachment and changes caused by humans to the environment (i.e. climate change), and human destruction of habitat and traditional nesting ponds due to development. Because amphibian populations have seen tremendous declines for all of these reasons in recent years, many scientists call amphibians the “canaries in the coal mine” of the Earth’s environmental health. Amphibian’s precipitous decline should be a harsh wake up call to us all, that human-induced changes to Earth’s ecosystems imperil not only the magnificent life around us, but our own health, security, stability, happiness and livelihoods.

Amphibian experts have developed a coordinated plan to take comprehensive actions to rescue amphibians – but they are severely underfunded. We must empower scientists immediately to stop this unprecedented, and in some cases irreversible loss of life, which could have devastating consequences to Earth’s food chains and ecosystems. It would be unprecedented that an entire stratum of life of Earth’s food chain – an entire genealogical Class (Amphibia) – was wiped out.

A Chytrid-infected frog