Frogs in Peril: A Race to Save a Threatened Frog With Risky Experimental Techniques
Frogs in Peril Joel SartoreScientists douse frogs with experimental bacteria to halt mass amphibian death For years, every time Vance Vredenburg visited his study area in Kings Canyon National Park in California, he tallied about 100 Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs. But in 2005, all the San Francisco State University biologist found were 30 carcasses floating in a lake. Most of the park's 10,000 frogs had fallen victim to chytrid, a disease that's the biggest threat to vertebrate biodiversity in history. This summer, Vredenburg returned to the area with plastic tubs full of a bacterial species that might save both this frog and other amphibians around the world. Chytrid is caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which interferes with an amphibian's ability to breathe and regulate fluid. No one knows where it came from, but over the past decade it has extinguished 200 of the 6,600 amphibian species found world-wide, and threatens...