By Manuel Rueda and Cesar
Garcia, AP 5/24/19
CUNDINAMARCA, COLOMBIA
In a small farmhouse
surrounded by cloud forest, Iván Lozano inspects dozens of glass containers
that hold some of the world's most coveted frogs.
The conservationist has been
fighting the illegal trade in rare tropical frogs for years, risking his life and
his checkbook to save the brightly colored, poisonous amphibians whose
population in the wild is dwindling
.
But Lozano doesn't hunt down
poachers and smugglers. He's trying to undermine them by breeding exotic frogs
legally and selling them at lower prices than specimens plucked by traffickers
from Colombia's jungles. His frog-breeding center Tesoros de Colombia, which
translates to Treasures of Colombia, is among a handful of conservation
programs around the world that are trying to curtail the trafficking of wild
animals by providing enthusiasts with a more eco-friendly alternative:
specimens bred in captivity.
"We can't control the
fact that in some countries it is legal to own these animals," Lozano
said. "But we want to make sure that collectors buy animals that are
raised in captivity and are legally exported."
Lozano's efforts to replace
illegally captured poison dart frogs have made him well known among collectors
in the United States, who are increasingly seeking legally traded specimens.
"Before there was no
way you could get a histrionica legally," said Julio Rodríguez, an
experienced New York City collector, referring to the Harlequin Poison Frog by
its scientific name. "If you saw one in a collection, it most likely came
from the black market.”
Rodríguez said that since
Tesoros de Colombia began exporting frogs to the United States six years ago
prices for some coveted species have dropped significantly. The price tag on
the Harlequin Frog dropped by 50 percent, he said.
The Golden Dart Frog,
another much-sought species, went from around $150 a few years ago to $30.
"We want prices to go
down so much that it's no longer profitable for traffickers to sell these
frogs," Lozano explained.
He said his company also
helps collectors breed their own frogs, so they can flood the market with
legally raised specimens, taking pressure off those living in the wild. The
frogs raised in captivity by Lozano are no longer poisonous, because they have
a different diet than wild specimens. But collectors still seek them for their
brilliant color patterns.
"We make ourselves
sustainable by moving on to new species," said Lozano, who already has
permits to export seven species, including the Red Lehmanni, a frog so rare
collectors refer to it as "the Holy Grail." Lozano is currently
seeking permission from Colombia's government to export another 13 species that
are under pressure from animal traffickers.
But while some breeding
efforts have helped to tackle the illegal trade, others have had unintended
consequences.
Indonesia allows the export
of 3 million captive-bred Tokay Geckos to global pet markets each year. But
weak regulation has given corrupt companies the opportunity to sell off wild
Geckos as Geckos bred in captivity, said Chris Shepherd a conservationist who
worked in South East Asia for two decades with TRAFFIC, an environmental group.
Laura Tensen, a zoologist at
the University of Johannesburg, said in South Africa, private game reserves
that breed lions for hunting have created a new market for lion bones. South
Africa now exports lion skeletons to Asia, where they are used for traditional
medicine, and this has given poachers in remote regions an additional incentive
to go after wild lions.
"For some species
captive breeding might help" to reduce trafficking, Tensen said. "But
one market does not always replace the other.”
In a 2016 study, Tensen
concluded that captive breeding programs are more likely to work when animals
bred in captivity are just as desirable to customers as those taken from the
wild. These programs are also more successful with species that are relatively
cheap to breed and in countries where authorities are arresting traffickers.
"In countries where the
risks of being caught are low, the prices for wild caught animals are always
less than those of captive bred animals," Shepherd said.
Lozano assigns ID numbers to
his frogs, to make it harder for traffickers to sell wild frogs as frogs bred
in captivity. But he has struggled to keep prices low because of the costs
associated with securing export permits from the Colombian government.
It took Lozano three years
to secure his first export permit, exasperating two business partners, who
eventually gave up on the venture. Lozano continued on his own and acquired a
debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the breeding center afloat.
He has also battled online
critics who have tried to undermine his business by spreading rumors on social
media that he is illegally exporting frogs. Lozano believes the criticism comes
from animal traffickers.
"For our own safety, we
try not to disclose details of our location," he said.
Lozano now wants to start a
program to repopulate some forests with frogs bred in his lab.
Colombia is home to 734 frog
species, more than any other country except Brazil. The Humboldt Institute, an
environmental research group, says at least 160 amphibian species in Colombia
are critically endangered.
"This is an urgent
situation," Lozano said. "If we don't persist some frogs could become
extinct.”
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