In 1977, I visited the Costa Rican cloud forest preserve, Monteverde. The small park headquarters had an aquarium that contained a Golden Toad. I did not know at the time that this species was doomed to extinction. The animal was a beautiful, brilliant neon orange frog (Bufo periglenes), about 2 inches long. A staff person at the headquarters mentioned that this species had only been found in this one small area of this cool, wet, and high-altitude forest. He said that very few had been seen recently and we would be very lucky if we saw some in the wild. I had this in the back of my mind as we left to explore the cloud forest, but our main objective was to see the extravagantly colored Resplendent Quetazal, a bird with a two foot long bright green tail. I saw screaming monkeys, I was chased by a giant cat weasel (Jaguarondi). I never saw the frog in the wild. In 1989 the last Golden Toad was seen, none have been reported since then. The news gradually filtered out through the scientific community that the toad was extinct, but the exact cause was not understood. Monteverde is a pristine cloud forest at the top of a mountain range; it was not developed, and should not have had much human influence. Yet, this extinction was to become emblematic; loss of this species was for many the beginning of general scientific awareness of a global trend of amphibian extinction. The extinction of the Golden Toad bewildered and saddened me, and came to mind when reading the articles that started surfacing in the 1990’s about amphibian extinctions elsewhere in the world. Little did I know that my experience with frog extinction would become very real in future years.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
An inkling of a problem
This is a travelogue, a research log, and most of all an extinction log. It describes two research trips to gauge the effects of loss of frogs caused by a fungal disease that is sweeping through Central America . The story is one of extinction, and how people who study these animals respond to the loss. The story is a wake for lost diversity; we will never see these many species of frogs again in the wild. The blog also places the loss in the cultural context of Panama
In 1977, I visited the Costa Rican cloud forest preserve, Monteverde. The small park headquarters had an aquarium that contained a Golden Toad. I did not know at the time that this species was doomed to extinction. The animal was a beautiful, brilliant neon orange frog (Bufo periglenes), about 2 inches long. A staff person at the headquarters mentioned that this species had only been found in this one small area of this cool, wet, and high-altitude forest. He said that very few had been seen recently and we would be very lucky if we saw some in the wild. I had this in the back of my mind as we left to explore the cloud forest, but our main objective was to see the extravagantly colored Resplendent Quetazal, a bird with a two foot long bright green tail. I saw screaming monkeys, I was chased by a giant cat weasel (Jaguarondi). I never saw the frog in the wild. In 1989 the last Golden Toad was seen, none have been reported since then. The news gradually filtered out through the scientific community that the toad was extinct, but the exact cause was not understood. Monteverde is a pristine cloud forest at the top of a mountain range; it was not developed, and should not have had much human influence. Yet, this extinction was to become emblematic; loss of this species was for many the beginning of general scientific awareness of a global trend of amphibian extinction. The extinction of the Golden Toad bewildered and saddened me, and came to mind when reading the articles that started surfacing in the 1990’s about amphibian extinctions elsewhere in the world. Little did I know that my experience with frog extinction would become very real in future years.
In 1977, I visited the Costa Rican cloud forest preserve, Monteverde. The small park headquarters had an aquarium that contained a Golden Toad. I did not know at the time that this species was doomed to extinction. The animal was a beautiful, brilliant neon orange frog (Bufo periglenes), about 2 inches long. A staff person at the headquarters mentioned that this species had only been found in this one small area of this cool, wet, and high-altitude forest. He said that very few had been seen recently and we would be very lucky if we saw some in the wild. I had this in the back of my mind as we left to explore the cloud forest, but our main objective was to see the extravagantly colored Resplendent Quetazal, a bird with a two foot long bright green tail. I saw screaming monkeys, I was chased by a giant cat weasel (Jaguarondi). I never saw the frog in the wild. In 1989 the last Golden Toad was seen, none have been reported since then. The news gradually filtered out through the scientific community that the toad was extinct, but the exact cause was not understood. Monteverde is a pristine cloud forest at the top of a mountain range; it was not developed, and should not have had much human influence. Yet, this extinction was to become emblematic; loss of this species was for many the beginning of general scientific awareness of a global trend of amphibian extinction. The extinction of the Golden Toad bewildered and saddened me, and came to mind when reading the articles that started surfacing in the 1990’s about amphibian extinctions elsewhere in the world. Little did I know that my experience with frog extinction would become very real in future years.
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