Save the frogs
The Pickersgill's Reed Frog is facing extinction if something is not done
PHOTO: Andrew Cornew
AMPHIBIANS are the most threatened group of vertebrate on earth and 32% are threatened, compared with 23% of mammals and 12% of birds; and 43% of all species are experiencing population declines while 200 species have become extinct since 1979.
Threatened Amphibian Programme(TAP) Manager, Dr Jeanne Tarrant addressed a crowd at the Tradewinds Country Inn in Mtunzini on Friday afternoon. Tarrant’s main focus, together with the Endangered Wildlife Trust, is to protect and preserve the Pickersgill’s Reed Frog before its complete decline.
Pickersgill’s Reed Frog is found in only a few sites within a narrow strip of the KwaZulu-Natal coastline.
It is listed as Critically Endangered due to its limited and fragmented distribution buckled with ongoing habitat loss.
The species is a habitat specialist and occurs at only a few isolated wetlands between St Lucia in the north and Sezela in the south.
Only two sites fall within Protected Areas and Mtunzini is one of them. Most of remaining populations occur in habitat that is already degraded, or face imminent threat of habitat loss or even risk of local extinction.
The loss of species could mean the inadvertent loss of potential cures for important human diseases.
Medicine, including pain killers and for blocking HIV, have been derived from frogs.
TAP is always looking for funding as well as volunteers to go out and document the Pickersgill’s Reed Frog’s habitat.
For more information or to help in anyway contact Dr Jeanne Tarrant, Threatened Amphibian Programme Manager at jeannet@ewt.org.za or call 083 2549563.
