Andrew Crawford is Associate
Professor of biology at Universidad de los Andes and member of the Smithsonian
Tropical Research institute. His research on amphibian evolutionary genetics
covers plenty of terrain in Colombia, from the Pacific coast with its poison
dart frogs to the discovery with a team of scientists of a new species in the
cloud forests of the high Andes. As a frog expert, Crawford spoke with The City
Paper about the many threats facing this species in the country.
The City Paper (TCP):
Andrew, what motivated you to come to Colombia and study amphibians?
Andrew Crawford (AC): When I
was a graduate student at the University of Chicago there was a programme
called the Organization of Tropical Studies that connects students with Costa
Rica. That got me to Costa Rica, and those were the coolest two months of my life.
That was in 1995, but I still needed a thesis, and as I like frogs, and they
are easy to study, I found out about the Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute (STRI) in the former Canal Zone of Panama. I applied for a fellowship
for a few months, and finished my Ph.D. on the frogs of Costa Rica. I learned a
lot about the history of these organisms across Central America, but the more I
studied them, the more I needed samples from Panama and Mexico. Then, I started
putting the whole story of dirt frogs together. That’s not their scientific
name, but an appropriate one, because they look like dirt, live in the dirt,
are as common as dirt, and as old as dirt. You won’t see them in any calendars.
TCP: So, your Central
America experience was key to your Colombia connection.
AC: When I would catch one
frog on one side of Costa Rica, I would ask myself, where could the closest
relative be? Nicaragua maybe, Honduras, Mexico? My research started expanding
out. Back in Panama with my post-doctoral research at STRI and National Science
Foundation, the perspective started getting bigger. I asked myself that if I
really wanted to solve the larger problem of the relationships between specific
species, what place could be next? Colombia. Also, at the Smithsonian in
Panama, there were lots of Colombian students with very good reputations. I
kept thinking to myself: “Wow, these Colombian students are sharp.” Befriending
one affiliated with Los Andes University, in 2005, I was invited to Bogotá and
by chance, met another “gringo” associated with Fulbright. We were mere
postdocs who didn’t have real jobs. But, it was easier to get a fellowship
then, than now. Thirteen years ago, researchers in the United States were not
“hot” on Colombia: drugs, kidnapping, all that. In 2006, I applied to be a
Visiting Professor at Los Andes, and was given a desk.
TCP: Did the security risk
affect your first outings to the jungle to study frogs?
AC: I am not an extreme
adventure guy by any means. I want to do what’s safe. If someone said to me
then, “don’t go there,” I didn’t. I wasn’t keen on pushing the envelope. I did
manage to go to Quibdó and Arací on the Pacific coast. That was highly
adventurous for me because the Lonely Planet didn’t cover the Chocó. When I
finally got there, I said: “Wow, I’m actually beyond the Lonely Planet!”
TCP: What did you find among
the frog population of the Chocó back then?
AC: When I was living in the
former Canal Zone, I would hear the red-eye tree frog every wet season from
behind my house. In Arací, I heard the same calling. When I finally caught one,
it had a very different color pattern. This was a cool discovery that nobody
reported, and knew that I could use some of my Panama research to help guide me
to what was new in the Chocó. Colombia became part of a bio-geographic strategy
with its mix of organisms from the north and others from the south. If I had
gone directly from Costa Rica to the Amazon, everything would have been new. If
you know your Central American frogs, it won’t help you in the Amazon. Frogs are
kind of stay at home guys.
TCP: Had you imagined, once
in Colombia, the level of frog biodiversity?
AC: Colombia has 800
amphibians and most of them are frogs. The country is number two in the world
in terms of its frog diversity; and, also wins for having the world’s most
poisonous frog: the all-yellow dart frog. The Dendrobates leucomelas has been
very well documented along the Pacific and gets all the attention, but there
are many more because anything that has poison and is colorful is also a dart frog.
If you see a bright colorful frog in the daytime stay away from it.
TCP: When biologists refer
to a “dangerous” frog, what can happen if you come across one during a hike in
the rainforest?
AC: It will kill anyone who
tries to eat it or if the toxin gets under your skin. It won’t attack you like
a scorpion. The dart frog is pure defense. There were several cases recently at
Bogotá’s International Airport of people smuggling these frogs in suitcases.
There’s a huge market out there for these “pets.” Sadly, 90% of them die before
they reach their destination. It’s a massacre, but collectors are willing to
pay a lot of money for a new color pattern, species and the most poisonous.
TCP: After your first trip
to Colombia in 2005, you set your sights on permanent tenure at Los Andes
University. How did this happen?
AC: The Fulbright visiting
professor deal was for just one semester, but as they paid so well, I stayed
for the year. But when I got to back to Panama, I realized Los Andes was nice,
Colombia was a great country and I found the regionalism tremendous. I started
applying to come back, and got an offer in 2006. My aim was – and still is – to
use frogs to study the origins of biodiversity. That’s a great question for
Colombia and a classic question in biology. Why are there so many species?
TCP: How old is the frog
community?
AC: Through genetics, we can
understand the origin of all species, and as frogs are sisters to the rest of
the tetrapods, reptiles, birds and mammals, this makes them very old. In fact,
they haven’t changed a lot in 150 million years. When you see a frog fossil, it
is very clearly a frog.
TCP: Biodiversity is a term
that’s used a lot in this country, but are we taking our biodiversity for
granted?
AC: If we give up on
conservation and don’t save our frogs, there’s one possible outcome: they’re
gone! The situation is bad because trafficking is getting worse. In a
post-conflict, it’s much easier to get to these frogs, and as deforestation
accelerates, we are losing entire populations. The disease has also claimed
many species. All these factors without thinking about how bad herbicides and
pesticides are.
TCP: There’s an anecdote
regarding your role with the sticker album Jet, very popular among children in
this country. Can you explain?
AC: I helped with the
genetic analysis of the Pristimantis dorado, a small golden frog native to the
forests of Colombia. Before it appeared in the Chocolates Jet album, Mauricio
Rivera-Correa of the University of Antioquia named it after mythical El Dorado,
because it seemed a nice way of saying that with the post-conflict, the new
riches of Colombia is the “Green economy” – our biodiversity.
TCP: We have spoken about
threats to the frog population at home, but what is happening globally?
AC: In the world, we just
hit 8,000 frogs officially. What is most interesting, however, is that to find
a new mammal is something that doesn’t happen every day, and as the numbers of
new species is going down every year, amphibians are bucking the trend. The
number of new frogs we are finding has not slowed at all – it just goes up and
up. It would be irresponsible to try and guess when this might stop – but, so
far – one could easily imagine 9,000 or 16,000 frog species in the world. And
in Colombia, our 800 frogs could easily double.
TCP: Yet, it seems that
frogs are suffering from so many external factors.
AC: Yes, frogs are getting
hit in many different ways. It really is a disaster. Many of our micro-endemic
species haven’t been seen again in the high-altitude páramos. In the mountains,
we have lost forests to cattle ranching and crop clearing. Another cause for
declining populations is the chytrid fungal disease that wipes out half the
frogs that get infected. If it’s not the fungus, another threat can be fish
farming. Our frogs face one insult after another.
TCP: As a leading expert on
amphibians, what are your more recent discoveries?
AC: I have been doing a lot
of research on how sensitive frogs are to the environment along Colombia’s
Caribbean coast. They live in extreme environments with harsh summers and very
little water. Some of the questions we are asking ourselves are: How do they
survive? Where do they come from? Did they move down from Central America, or did
they live in the Amazon and crossed over the Andes? What I can tell you from
the radiation of the frog population is that the vast majority on the planet
come from southern South America. We are finding an unexpected connection
between Colombia’s coastal frogs with those in Chile and Argentina.
TCP: Have you seen at Los
Andes an increase among biology students who want to study frogs?
AC: Reporting on frogs gets
people excited, and for some reason, in my field of research – Herpetology –
there are more students studying frogs than other creepy crawlies. Frogs tend
to attract the press due to the many threats they face.
TCP: Your name was recently
mentioned with two large seizures at El Dorado airport involving animal
traffickers. Why did the National Police call on you?
AC: The National Police
wanted to check the frogs which survived fungal disease before putting them
back in the wild. My laboratory did the checking. As the yellow dart frog only
exists in one tiny patch in Colombia, it can be collected out of existence, and
the police know where they exist. It seemed that someone close to the
traffickers snitched as they were leaving the forest with suitcases.
The weird thing is with
these frogs is that they have distinctive patterns depending on which forest
they inhabit. So, the authorities can know where animal traffickers are
operating depending on the frogs they have caught.
TCP: Do you think there is a
concerted effort by the Ministry of Environment and National Police to protect
frogs against traffickers?
AC: Awareness of the problem
is definitely on the increase, and I am involved with developing the Amphibian
Action Plan of the Ministry of the Environment. A key element to the Plan de
Acción de Anfibios is to combat illegal trade. We have to assume that with
these busts, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
TCP: Do communities try and
stop traffickers from taking their frogs?
AC: It’s very imperative to
tell a community that they have “special frogs,” in order to give them a sense
of pride. Secondly, there are pilot projects to protect certain species through
sustainable harvesting, and this can bring in money for vulnerable communities.
TCP: So you are not very
optimistic about the future of Colombia’s “kermits”?
AC: When I came to Colombia
13 years ago, I would say: “Wow, look at all this biodiversity.” Then, someone
who had been here 30 years would respond: “Andrew, this is nothing compared to
what was once here.” It comes down to shifting baselines with each generation.
I would like to be able to say something optimistic, but as far as conservation
of our frogs is concerned, I think things will get worse before they get better.
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