Artificial rain storm helps rare frogs get frisky

By WMNAGreenwood | Posted: September 21, 2016

By Herald Reporter





Keepers have bred a critically endangered colour-changing frog by using artificial rain storms.

It is the first time the lemur leaf frog, found mainly in the rainforests of Costa Rica and Panama, has been bred at Paignton Zoo in Devon.

A team from the zoo prepared a rain chamber using a water pump and timer system to make it rain every few hours during the day.

The rainfall and humidity helped replicate the kind of conditions the frogs would encounter at the start of the wet season, when they breed.

Andy Meek, a keeper from the zoo’s lower vertebrates and invertebrates department, said: “We have a total of 18 tadpoles, a number of which have now become full froglets.

“We also have 10 adults. The species is critically endangered. There is a studbook currently being set up to manage this species in Europe.

“This is a first for Paignton Zoo, so I’m really pleased.”

The zoo is one of only four collections in the UK working with the species.

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World’s rarest frogs saved from extinction and released in the Caribbean

One of the world’s rarest frogs, the mountain chicken frog, bred as part of an international project to save the species from extinction, has been successfully returned to its Caribbean home ahead of the global day on Saturday to highlight the plight of their species.

Fifty one Critically Endangered mountain chicken frogs, native only to the islands of Montserrat and Dominica, were released back onto Montserrat this summer following a hugely successful breeding programme at Zoological Society of London (ZSL) London Zoo.

In 2009 it was reported by conservationists from ZSL and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust that the wild population of mountain chicken frogs in Montserrat had severely declined due to disease, and urgent action was needed to safeguard their future.

The frogs had been decimated by the spread of the Chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, and facing the very real threat of extinction. A small population of the last remaining healthy frogs was airlifted from Montserrat in a dramatic rescue mission.

Transported to three custom-built centres at ZSL London Zoo, Durrell in Jersey and Parken Zoo in Sweden, the 50 rescued frogs were the founders of the conservation breeding programme established to preserve and develop a healthy population of the animals, which would have otherwise undoubtedly been destroyed by the fungal disease.

The Mountain Chicken Recovery Programme is a partnership between Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, ZSL, North of England Zoological Society Chester Zoo, Nordens Ark and the Governments of Montserrat and Dominica.

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