GBR: 'Last wave' for wild golden frog

[John]

BBC NEWS WEBSITE 01 February 08 'Last wave' for wild golden frog
A BBC film crew has captured footage of a rare frog waving, wrestling and courting for the first time.

Read the full article (it involves the new BBC series Life in Cold Blood) at the BBC News Website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7219803.stm

 

[Jake]

That story is both interesting and very depressing at the same time.

I thought a miracle cure for chytrid was discoverd, isn't it in some type of prescription eye drops?

 

[John]

It's not a cure. It's a pretty "out there" treatment. Sooo far from ideal it's not right.

 

[michael]

Chytrid can be cured in captivity. It can't be erradicated in the wild. The idea is to raise threatened amphibians in captivity while chytrid passes through the area. Possibly the animals can be released in the future if the chytrid disappears. Their is work being done on finding ways to treat chytrid in the wild but I don't think anything has been found.
Justin Yeager who is a former caudata.org member is doing a lot of work with atelopis. I know he also did some work with the BBC in Panama.

 

[John]

Chytrid can be cured in captivity.

I would hardly call chloramphenicol a real "cure". Yes it will cause at least some amphibians to recover from the chytrid infection but has anyone done anything approaching a real study on its long term effects and side effects? No they haven't. They need to study how it works with the fungus and design something more suitable for widespread use on amphibians in the environment. We can't go around spraying chloramphenicol on frogs and salamanders around the world for the chemical effects, let alone the impracticality of it.

I would very much like to hear from Justin - are you in contact with him still Michael?

 

[damien]

Chytrid can be cured in captivity. It can't be erradicated in the wild. The idea is to raise threatened amphibians in captivity while chytrid passes through the area. Possibly the animals can be released in the future if the chytrid disappears. Their is work being done on finding ways to treat chytrid in the wild but I don't think anything has been found.
Justin Yeager who is a former caudata.org member is doing a lot of work with atelopis. I know he also did some work with the BBC in Panama.

Isn't the chytrid 'just' spreading to newer area's? It would be weird if it just passed over an area like a cloud or something. If that was the case then it would be less of a problem. The tougher/luckyer animals will survive and when the 'wave' is gone they'll just recover the numbers... The problem is that the fungus spreads and doesn't leave an area, unless the climate there is unfavorable.

What I understood from the project of amphibian ark is that they try to make the amphibians and offspring resistant to the fungus and release them then.

It's a weird and horrible thought that most of the frogs that appear on Life in Cold Blood are most likely all dead, or at least extinct in the wild..