Page 21 - Gateways_Fall2021

Slippery

Science

SAVING A SPECIES FROM EXTINCTION

n 2015, Bill Zeigler, CZS’ senior vice president of Animal
I Programs, received a call from a member of Pangolin
Conservation, an organization he had worked with in the
West African nation of Togo. The man had stumbled upon
some very rare tadpoles in two streams. They were the
progeny of a species once thought to be extinct—Togo slippery
frogs. The streams were drying up and the tadpoles sure to
perish. “Can you take them?” the man asked Zeigler.
Togo slippery frogs are small frogs—measuring only about
3 inches long—that live in and near streams of fast-flowing water
surrounded by forests. They are listed as critically endangered on the
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List
of Threatened Species. No one knows for sure how many of them
remain in the wild, but the estimate is only 249 mature adult frogs.
Most of them occupy a small 4-square-mile range of forest in the
southwestern region of Togo, along the border of Togo and Ghana.
Experts say the species may become extinct in the wild in 20 years.
An adult male Togo slippery frog hovers over
recently hatched tadpoles at Brookfield Zoo.
The species is critically endangered with
only an estimated 249 mature adult frogs
remaining in the wild.

BROOKFIELD ZOO | FALL 2021 21