How to Help

Once we are aware and educated about the mass endangerment and extinction of amphibians, we can begin to help. We have realized that amphibians are affected at unusually high numbers due to environmental issues that we have caused. Amphibians are an important part of the ecosystem, and without them, we could face many consequences. Now what? Now, we help! 

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HOW TO HELP

1. Educate yourself

After reading this blog, you already got the ball rolling on step one! However, there is much more you can do to help the amphibians. One way to do this is by staying informed about legislation that effects your local frog population. This can help frogs avoid habitat destruction, deforestation and disease. 

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2. Protect the environment

This point tends to sound like a bigger commitment than it actually requires. There are several simple ways to protect the environment. 

a. Start by watching what you throw away and where you throw it away to help protect amphibian habitats. 

b. Refrain from introducing non-native plants and animals to new environments. This relates to the worldwide frog trade, primarily concerning bullfrogs, I mentioned in my previous blog posts. 

c. Reduce the amount of chemicals we put into the environment. You can do this by buying organic food that does not use pesticides.

d. Don't flush medicines down the toilet! Medicine easily gets into the water and poisons it for the amphibians.

e. Conserve less water because the less water we use and contaminate, the better for the amphibians.  

3. Support Conservation

If you are able, then putting money towards a campaign such as Save the Frogs, Amphibian Ark, or Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. If your not able to donate money, volunteering for one of these campaigns is always a good option. Lastly, spread the word! The best way to get volunteers and people motivated is by talking about this issue. Many aren't educated enough to understand how serious this problem is, so do all you can to get the information out there. 

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Popular Amphibians

For this post, rather than visiting websites focused on saving amphibians, I visited websites about the general amphibian species. I was curious to see if most amphibian sites discuss the mass endangerment and extinction, even if it's not in the website's title or information. Fortunately, most websites that focus on amphibian life discuss the vast and speedy decline of the species, but not all.

The first website I visited focused on all species. If you go into popular species and then choose amphibians, an array of different amphibian species, videos, and photos appear. The page opens up with a description of what an amphibian is, an example of a few amphibians, and the explanation that around 41% of amphibians are at risk for extinction. The first amphibian offered to explore is the Chinese giant salamander. The Chinese salamander lives underwater in cold and fast running rivers and streams. The Chinese giant salamander is classified as critically endangered on the IUNC red list. They're critically endangered due to hunting, habitat loss, deforestation, pesticides and climate change. Even having just one of these could pose as a problem, but since the Chinese giant salamander has to deal with all of these environmental issues, it's no wonder they're critically endangered.

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The next website I explored compared the loss of amphibian life today to the extinction of dinosaurs because they are the only comparable species to this fast and immense extinction. This comparison put the seriousness of amphibian endangerment and extinction into perspective because it discusses the reality of the entire species going extinct. Dinosaurs are known as "before our time" and the fact that frogs, salamanders and toads could possibly be thrown into this category is catastrophic. Dinosaur extinction dealt with factors such as extreme drought, flooding, ice ages, and several other natural disasters. However, the extinction of frogs, toads and salamanders would be caused because of human's carelessness with how we treat the environment. These facts should be enough to motivate people towards change.

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The final website I analyzed was a website designed for children to learn about amphibians. This website discussed how amphibians are named and classified. One fun fact I learned visiting this site is that the word amphibian means "two-lives." There are three other facts listed on this page of the website including how they grow, that they're cold-blooded, and that there are over 4,000 amphibian species that exist. Unfortunately, this website's page did not discuss the endangerment and extinction of amphibians. While this is a children's website and they want to keep the information understandable and interesting, I think it is extremely important to educate children about amphibian's critical case of endangerment. Children are our future, therefore, they should know more than anyone about the environmental issues in today's society. If we can interest children in this issue, educate them about how to help, and motivate them to get involved then they could improve the situation we have gotten ourselves and this species into.

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Join Save the Frogs!

"Save the Frogs" is a great way to become educated about the amphibian decline, learn how to help, and learn how to spread the word. "Save the Frogs" has an interactive website where you can choose between multiple different topics to either learn about the decline, find where to donate, see what events are happening and more. Events Save the Frog sponsor include speeches by the founder at different universities, screenings of documentaries, and hands-on activities to help the cause at lakes and marinas around the country and world. Save the Frogs also holds contests on their site where people can submit poetry and art. The best poems they receive will be used in a book of frog poetry that will be sold to raise money for amphibian conservation efforts. This book will also include the winning artwork from the art contest on the site. I decided to write a poem for this blog inspired by the Save the Frogs contest:

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Wasn't Me

by: Jessica Fullam

Frogs, salamanders, and toads

All have seen better days

Will my children know

Of these wonderful creatures?

Declining quickly day by day

Who is to blame for all of this?

Humans are bad; causing harm

But it wasn't me I insist

You seem nice, it couldn't be you

We would never hurt a frog

So who is it then, who?

If we don't change our actions

Then it is me. It is you. 

I wrote this poem to emphasize that many of us care about the issues in the environment, but none of us want to take responsibility for consequences that occur due to our careless actions. We are aware that  "humans" are causing the damage to the environment, but as individuals it is difficult to own up to our mistakes and begin to change our actions. I used an apocalyptic approach at the beginning of my poem to emphasis the quick rates that amphibian species are becoming extinct and endangered. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, 200 frog species had become extinct and another 2,000 frog species were on the verge of extinction.The continued existence of the frogs is not guaranteed. The fate of the  remaining frogs depend on the actions of humans who care, spread the word, and are motivated to help.

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There are different options for joining Save the Frogs listed on their website. You can either get different levels of membership depending on how much you would like to donate, and the higher member you get means more benefits. Some of these benefits include the monthly newsletter, postcards, bumper stickers, T-shirts, and more. If you're low on cash or don't feel comfortable committing to a membership, you can always sign up to be a volunteer. Volunteers can sign up on the website and check out different ways to help, either in everyday life or on a set mission. Doing either of these things, or even just going to the website and reading through ways you can help everyday can make a huge difference in the environment and help save frogs. Like I said in my poem, "If we don't change our actions, then it is me. It is you." 

Why focus on saving amphibians?

With all the destruction and loss of species in the environment, why should we focus on amphibians? Through research I found an article from the Ian Somerhalder Foundation entitled "Endangered Amphibians" I learned several reasons why we need amphibians around and why we should feel responsible for their species suffering today. This article discusses the fact that amphibians are a fragile species because of their complex reproductive systems and permeable skin. Therefore, even the smallest change in the climate can greatly impact an amphibian and cause them to die. The article states, "Habitat loss, pollution, amphibian collection, non-native introduced species, climate change, and destruction of the ozone layer are major contributors to the causes of the decline in species numbers." All of these factors negatively affecting amphibian species are caused by humans. These issues in the environment are causing the endangerment of species such as Harlequin frogs from Costa Rica, the Chinese Giant Salamander, and the Western Leopard Toad of South Africa. The data chart below includes specifics about endangered, extinct, and surviving amphibian species.

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We can clearly see how human destruction to the environment has widely affected amphibian species, but how is this detrimental to us? According the the article, amphibians have played an important part in cultures across the world being displayed in sculptures, drawings, paintings and is even seen as a token of good fortune in Japan. Amphibians, especially frogs and toads, have been used as fantastical creatures that possess power and magic in fables, such as "The Princess and the Toad." Amphibians represent these special creatures because they embody multiple values for humans. Studies show that more than 73 amphibian species are known to contain some medicinal value through harmless means. Many secretions from certain amphibians are used in antibiotics and pain relievers. The article explains, "One helpful secretion is a potent non-addictive pain reliever considered to be 100 to 200 times more effective than morphine." Next, amphibians serve an intrinsic value for society with their specific colors, shapes, and sizes. The wide array of amphibians are beautifully unique species. Lastly, amphibians are a vital part in the food web and ecosystem. Without this species, other species might overpopulate certain areas, since amphibians cannot kill them off, or die out, since they can no longer feed on amphibians. 

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So, now what can we do to help? Endangered Species International contributes to this article by suggesting a number of ways humans can change in order to help save amphibian species. The article gives eleven different suggestions on how to improve your personal life to help the amphibians, but I'm only going to discuss three. First, we can help by eating organic food because by reducing pesticide and fertilizer use, we can directly reduce the amount of chemicals in the environment. Second, leaving natural, and even artificial, ground cover in your backyard, such as dead wood, because ground cover provides moist shelter for amphibians. Last, join campaigns to stop frog and salamander trade because this easily can introduce new diseases and predators to these species. Bullfrogs are commonly sold and traded and are among the highest frog species with the disease chytrid, mentioned in my previous blog post. The trades can be directly associated with bullfrogs contracting chytrid and spreading the disease to other frog species. "Save the Frogs" is a good campaign for those interested in reducing these problems for the amphibians. 

Analysis & Summary of National Geographic Article "The Vanishing"

An article published by National Geographic in April of 2009 by Jennifer Holland entitled "The Vanishing" was what first drew me to this issue. This article opens up with a descriptive story of a male frog and a female frog who seem to be hugging, but the female is dead. Habitat destruc­tion, the introduction of exotic species, commercial exploitation, and water pollution are working in concert to decimate the world's amphibians.

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 In addition to these obstacles in the environment, a form of fungal infection known as "chytrid" is a big cause of death for amphibians. Chytrid attacks keratin, a key protein in skin and mouthparts, which messes up oxygen exchange and control of water and salts in the body.The two frogs in the opening story of the article tested positive for chytrid and the male died soon after the female. To put this fungal  into perspective, researcher Lee Bergers, explains: "The impact of chytrid on frogs is the most spectacular loss of vertebrate biodiversity due to disease in recorded history."  Completely extinct from the wild are the Costa Rican golden toad, the Panamanian golden frog, the Wyoming toad, and the Australian gastric-brooding frog, to name a few. 

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Vance Vredenburg is a biologist at San Francisco State University whose been studying frogs for over 13 years recalls, "It wasn't long ago when you walked along the bank of this pond, a frog leapt at every other step. You'd see hundreds of them alive and well, soaking in the sun in a writhing mass." But in 2005, when Vrenburg returned ready for another series of studies he said, "there were dead frogs everywhere. Frogs I'd been working with for years, that I'd tagged and followed through their lives, all dead. I sat down on the ground and cried." This quote really opened my eyes at how devastating the loss of amphibian life has been in the past 20 years. My personal experience growing up with a pond in my backyard, picturing this scene Vrenenburg described broke my heart. Vance Vrenenburg worked to remove the fish from the lakes where frogs were dying to restore the frog population. However, once the lakes were free of fish, chytrid came back and killed the frog species once again. Vrenenburg is now working to create an anti-fungal medication to give frogs that helps them overcome chytrid. 

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Still, more frogs are dying now than ever before due to infections and problems that humans are causing in the environment. Frogs are a rare species because there are so many different types, sizes, colors, and shapes. However, if we continue to be careless and reckless with how we treat our environment, species will continue to disappear and die. Amphibians are beautifully unique creatures and I plan to change my ways to save species of frogs, toads, and salamanders.