Experts call for €314m amphibian rescue mission

EXPERTS are calling for a multi-million euro rescue mission to save frogs and other amphibians from extinction.

Scientists heading the campaign say 32% of all the world’s amphibian species are now under threat.

Since 1980, as many as 122 species may have become extinct.

The $400 million (€314m) initiative, the Amphibian Survival Alliance, would involve programmes of research, monitoring, disease management and captive breeding. A global network of centres for amphibian recovery and protection is also envisaged.

Professor Andrew Blaustein, from Oregon State University in the US said: “This is part of an overall biodiversity crisis, and amphibians seem to have been hit the hardest of all vertebrate species.

“These are bioindicators that something is wrong with the planet. But amphibians play a major role in many ecosystems, in some places the amphibian biomass is greater than that of all the other vertebrates. The long-term ecological repercussions of their decline could be profound, and we have to do something about it.”

Amphibians have existed on Earth for more than 300m years, pre-dating the dinosaurs, and their dramatic decline has alarmed many researchers.

The creatures are especially sensitive to environmental changes, and are regarded as “canaries in a coal mine” providing an early warning of dangers ahead.

Prof Blaustein said: “Amphibians have sensitive skin, they live in both land and water, have no protective hair or feathers, and their eggs have no hard outer shell. So it’s clear why they may be vulnerable ... However, they persisted for hundreds of millions of years and just now are disappearing in many areas.”

Among the identified causes of amphibian decline are rising levels of ultraviolet radiation, pollution, pesticides, habitat loss, invasive species and fungal disease.

Prof Blaustein and 49 colleagues voiced their concerns in a policy statement published yesterday in the journal Science.