Denver Zoo hopes visitors will jump at chance to see frogs, help save species
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published March 26, 2008 at 7 a.m.
Updated March 27, 2008 at 12:33 a.m.
Photo by Dave Parsons / Denver Zoo
One of the frog species on view.
Denver Zoo is leaping into the battle to save frogs from extinction, sponsoring First Frog Fridays this year and teaching visitors what they can do to save the slimy jumpers.
Every first Friday of the month a special frog mascot will welcome guests as they enter the zoo. Inside Tropical Discovery, visitors can take close looks at the zoo's 26 frog species: 25 of which are threatened or endangered.
Zookeepers will speak about amphibians and efforts to save them. And there will be prizes.
Most of the world's 6,000 amphibian species are in danger.
Besides the perennial problem of loss of habitat, the frogs face a critical new threat.
The pell-mell spread of the infectious disease chytridiomycosis, commonly known as chytrid fungus, is posing problems for the creatures.
The Denver Zoo is a partner in AZA's Species Survival Plans, which tries to keep breeding species that are facing extinction in the wild.
The Denver Zoo also participates in amphibian conservation projects in the wild.
One such project focuses on the Lake Titicaca frog, which lives on the border of Bolivia and Peru.
Local superstition says that the frogs are good medicine and increase sex drive, so 150 are killed and eaten unnecessarily each day.
The Denver Zoo is helping biologists at a university in Lima, Peru, to set up a new holding facility for confiscated Lake Titicaca frogs.
And Denver Zoo staffers are helping two Lima zoos establish frog displays to help locals better understand the plight of the frogs.
Two other Denver Zoo initiatives:
* Looking at reintroducing leopard frogs and canyon tree frogs to the wild in the Wind River Ranch area of New Mexico.
* Helping to ensure the survival of the Panamanian golden frog by breeding them in the zoo's Tropical Discovery building and helping Panama open a conservation center.
First Frog Fridays
* All at the Denver Zoo from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. - April 4, May 2, June 6, July 4, Aug. 1 and Sept. 5.
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March 26, 2008
11:07 a.m.
Suggest removal
Radar writes:
RRRibbbet
March 27, 2008
7:32 a.m.
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Theoldguy writes:
What about what's going on in THIS country.