Riders of a Modern-Day Ark

A mphibians may not seem the hardiest of creatures, but they have roamed Earth for 360 million years—a span including at least two major Ice Ages and four warming, interglacial periods. Yet their ability to evolve in concert with an ever-changing environment may not be enough to survive a world now dominated by human activity. Over 1,800 amphibian species, one-third of all known species, are threatened with extinction, according to the Global Amphibian Assessment [1]. Countless other, yet-undescribed, species may never have their place on Earth documented. Of all amphibians—toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians— the frog's prevalence renders it at greatest risk. Habitat destruction is, without a doubt, the top chronic cause of amphibian declines. Introduced exotic species, commercial trade, UV-B radiation, pesticides, and global warming are also well-documented threats. But something much more ominous—the emergence of a deadly fungus that causes sudden widespread population crashes—has compelled the conservation community to take drastic measures. " The loss of much of an entire vertebrate class is unlike anything we've seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs, " says Kevin Zippel (see Figure 1), one of dozens of scientists backing a rescue that borders on the biblical—with a name to match. The Amphibian Ark (http://www.amphibianark.org), a plan to create a collective of hundreds of rescue facilities hosted primarily at zoos and aquariums around the world, will house and captively breed roughly 500 amphibian species deemed most at risk of extinction from the fungus. The Ark, with its focus on captive breeding, is the highest-profile initiative of the US$400 million Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP), devised two years ago by amphibian specialists desperate to save these species from the emerging fungal threat [2]. Over half of ACAP's long-term budget, however, is dedicated to identifying and safeguarding critical regions with high biodiversity value and their freshwater resources [3]. In the near term, it is the Ark's estimated US$50 million 5-year cost that Ark sponsors—World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, and the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group—hope to secure by designating 2008 the Year of the Frog and launching an educational and fund-raising campaign. Currently, North American zoos are prepared to manage just ten amphibian species, while the global zoo community could, at best, house 50 species. Thus, conservationists say they must act at an unprecedented international scale to protect species by preventing outbreaks of the …