The Amphibian Decline

Amphibians are going extinct at an alarming rate. Photo by Jamie Holden.

All known amphibians are going extinct at rates unseen since the KT Boundary event that wiped out the dinosaurs and other dominant life.

By Citizen Correspondent Seth Burdick

Date Posted: 09/17/07

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For the past seven years I've been working in the biological departments of various universities. Ultimately this is going to culminate in a Masters at the end of this December, but I don't think people realize how much actual work and research gets done at the graduate level. In my work, I have concluded that the earth has a very big problem - All known amphibians on the planet are going extinct at rates unseen before. It is time to stop squabbling and do something.

I am a herpetologist, one who studies reptiles and amphibians. While my interests are broad-ranging within the field, I've been focusing for the past three years on Anurans (frogs and toads). Fun fact: frogs are toads, and toads are frogs. There is no separation of the two in their taxonomic grouping. So, saying you like frogs and toads is saying you like frogs twice.

The state Game, Fish and Parks contracted my professor, Dr. David Swanson, and I to carry out habitat surveys for a species known as the Blanchard's Cricket Frog. Cricket frogs are incredibly small, usually reaching around 25 cm at adulthood. They're crepuscular, meaning they're most active at dawn or dusk. They will occasionally call during daytime periods, but most calling activity is observed at sunset and the few hours following it.

The whole reason for the study is that cricket frogs were thought to have been extirpated (extinct) within South Dakota. We've recently proven that they are not.

My research is focusing on the habitat usage and overwintering (freeze tolerance) abilities of these little critters, but I'm going to take a more general slant for the remainder of this article. We have a very big problem, you see. All known amphibians on the planet are going extinct at rates unseen since the KT Boundary event that wiped out the dinosaurs and other dominant life.

Salamanders, caecilians, tree frogs (Hylidae), pond frogs (Ranidae), you name it. Almost every known species is in dramatic decline, and a good many of them have already gone extinct.

A sad example of this would be the golden toad. Golden toads were a tropical species we discovered in the late '70s to early '80s. By 1990, we had lost any known populations of them.