Category Archives: Environmental Health

01/20/11

Rediscovering Haiti's Lost Frogs

Haiti recently marked the anniversary of the January 12, 2010, earthquake that devastated the country, killing over 300,000 people, and leaving almost a million people homeless.

Recently scientists from Conservation International (CI) and the Amphibian Specialist Group (ASG) of IUCN reported a bit of news they hope might become a source of pride and hope for the country’s environmental future: the surprising re-discovery of six species of  frogs in the country’s severely degraded tropical forests, species that had been lost to science for nearly two decades.

Large-scale deforestation has left the country with less than two-percent of its original forest cover and has degraded most of the fresh water ecosystems. Yet Haitians depend on the cloud forests of the southwest mountains as two of the last remaining pockets of environmental health and natural wealth in Haiti.

This expedition was part of Conservation International’s global Search for Lost Frogs campaign, in which CI’s Amphibian Conservation Specialist Dr. Robin Moore, in partnership with Dr. Blair Hedges of Pennsylvania State University, searched for the La Selle Grass frog (E. glanduliferoides), which had not been seen in more than 25 years. They also hoped to assess the status of Haiti’s 48 other native species of amphibians.

The scientists did not find the La Selle Grass frog, but to their surprise, they rediscovered several other remarkable frog species, most of which haven’t been seen since 1991. As Dr. Moore says, “We went in looking for one missing species and found a treasure trove of others. That, to me, represents a welcome dose of resilience and hope for the people and wildlife of Haiti.”

Dr. Moore says that a common assumption about Haiti is that there isn’t anything left to save. Yet this is not true. According to Moore, there are biologically rich pockets intact, despite tremendous environmental pressures. Haiti now has the opportunity to design their reconstruction plans around these pockets, and to protect them, so that these natural areas can more effectively act as buffers to climate change and natural disasters. However, there is little time to waste: 92 percent of Haiti’s amphibian populations are listed as threatened and are in danger of disappearing.

“The biodiversity of Haiti, including its frogs, is approaching a mass extinction event caused by massive and nearly complete deforestation. Unless the global community comes up with a solution soon, we will lose many unique species forever,” said Dr. Hedges.

Amid the backdrop of Haiti’s struggle to rebuild, Moore added some important context:

The devastation that the people of Haiti are still coping with is almost unimaginable. I have never seen anything like it. Clearly, the health of Haiti’s frogs is not anyone’s primary concern here. However, the ecosystems these frogs inhabit, and their ability to support life, is critically important to the long-term well-being of Haiti’s people, who depend on healthy forests for their livelihoods, food security, and fresh water. Amphibians are what we call barometer species of our planet’s health. They’re like the canaries in the coal mine. As they disappear, so too do the natural resources people depend upon to survive.

Here are a few of the rediscovered frogs:

Hispaniolan Ventriloquial Frog (Eleutherodactylus dolomedes). This frog is named after its call that the frog projects like a ventriloquist. Its unusual call consists of a rapid seven-note series of chirps, with the initial four notes rising slowly in pitch before plateauing; the call is released in widely-spaced intervals, often minutes apart. Prior to this expedition, the species was only known from a few individuals.

Mozart’s Frog (E. amadeus). Called Mozart’s frog because when Dr. Hedges, who discovered the species, made an audiospectrogram of the call, it coincidentally resembled musical notes. Its call is a four-note muffled whistle at night; usually given as a shorter two-note call at dawn and dusk.

La Hotte Glanded Frog (E. glandulifer). This frog could be called Old Blue Eyes: its most distinctive feature are its striking blue sapphire-colored eyes – a highly unusual trait among amphibians.

La Hotte Glanded Frog, Eleutherodactylus glandulifer. Copyright Claudio Contreras /iLCP.

Macaya Breast-spot frog. (E. thorectes). Approximately the size of a grape, this is one of the smallest frogs in the world. In Haiti, this species has a very restricted range, occurring only on the peaks of Formon and Macaya at high elevations on the Massif de la Hotte.

Juvenile Macaya breast-spot landfrog, E. thorectes. Photo copyright Robin Moore/iLCP

Hispaniolan Crowned Frog. This species was named after a row of protuberances that resemble a crown on the back of its head. Prior to this expedition, the species was known from less than 10 individuals, and is likely to be extremely rare. It is an arboreal species, occurring in high-elevation cloud forest. Males call from bromeliads or orchids, which they seem to require for reproduction.

Macaya Burrowing Frog. Haiti is now the only place where two burrowing frogs are known to share the same habitat. This species has big jet black eyes and bright orange flashes on the legs. Males call from shallow, underground chambers and eggs are also laid underground, where they hatch directly into froglets.

For more information, please visit Conservation International’s site, which includes more photos, recordings of the frogs’ calls, and a video.

12/1/10

Become a Frog Listener and Help Save Your State's Frogs

In many parts of the country, frogs and toads have begun their hibernation, and we humans, too, are hibernating for the winter—at least in parts of the northern hemisphere. This is a good time, however, to hone your frog listening skills and to think about volunteering as a frog listener for the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, (NAAMP) a nationwide program of the U.S. Geological Survey that studies the distribution and relative abundance of amphibians in North America. The data collected from frog listeners across the country is analyzed for patterns of amphibian stability or decline on local, regional, and national levels.

Several states are participating in this study. Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources, for example, has participated in NAAMP, since 2008. In Georgia as elsewhere, frogs serve as indicators of environmental change: the data collected by volunteers helps monitor habitat change or loss of wetlands.

In Georgia, volunteers are asked to drive a predetermined route (or routes), stopping for five minutes to listen for and report frog species and their relative abundance at 10 established wetland stops. They visit these local listening routes three times a year.

Frog listening not only helps frogs, it helps the participants, too. Listening to the frog calls, according to Sarah Barlow, a NAAMP participant, is not only relaxing and enjoyable, it also builds “a greater appreciation of being in the woods.” (Quoted in an online article Frog Listener Volunteers Answer Call To Help Survey Frogs Across Georgia.)

Before becoming a frog listener, you must first take the U.S. Geological Survey quiz and be able to idenfity 65 percent of the frogs in your state. Even if you don’t want to become a frog listener, it’s fun to take the quiz to test your knowledge of the calls of frogs in your state.

So in addition to holiday music, why not plan to listen to some other choruses—frog choruses—in preparation for spring. If you live in Georgia, you don’t have to wait that long. The first listening window next year opens January 15.

Here’s one frog from Georgia with a distinctive call, the Green Frog (Rana clamitans)

09/30/10

Deformed Frogs Found in New Mexico Pond

According to the KOAT-TV blog (Albuquerque, NM), residents of Los Lunas, New Mexico, are concerned about  dead and deformed frogs found in a pond in a park just a few feet from their homes.

A  frog with two extra legs

As quoted in the report, a resident, who wants to remain anonymous, said the discovery has been a huge concern around the neighborhood for weeks. “We saw several today, probably five or six, maybe ten that were just dead around the pond.”

A local resident took pictures of the deformed frogs after her kids caught several from the pond. In the photos, some of the frogs have no back legs at all, while others have too many legs.

Michael Jaramillo, director of Parks and Recreation for Los Lunas, investigated these reports and found two dead and deformed frogs almost instantly. He suspects that weed killer or chemicals used to treat the algae may be hurting the amphibians. The city of Los Lunas has closed the park and has stretched a yellow caution tape around the entire pond, and experts will soon test the water.

Mason Ryan, an amphibian expert at the University of New Mexico, said in a related article that  frogs can be good indicators of what’s wrong in the environment. He doesn’t know what’s specifically happening at the New Mexico park, but the frogs could help tell the story.

“It could indicate that something is out of whack — a potential parasite population has increased too much, a potential predator or disease or chemical contaminant.”

State environmental officials plan to contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and to test the water for contaminants.

More information:

Dead, Deformed Frogs Found in Pond, KOAT, Albuquerque

State Official Investigate Deformed Frogs

03/25/10

Atrazine Turning Frog Princes into Frog Princesses?

Last summer, we wrote a post, Rachel Carson’s Legacy, about troubling chemicals called endrocrine disruptors, potentially harmful to both humans and frogs, that are in herbicides and pesticides, as well as in plastic, cosmetics, and many consumer products. We followed up with a post about Berkeley professor Dr. Tyrone Hayes‘ studies of one endocrine disruptor, Atrazine, a widely-used weed killer, and its effects on frogs. Some of these effects included “intersex” frogs—male frogs that developed with female characteristics.

Recently a new study by Dr. Hayes has brought increased media attention to this issue.  As reported in the article, Weed Killer Creates Mr. Moms (Science News), Atrazine was added to water in the laboratory’s frog tanks in concentrations of 2.5 parts per billion—the same amount that might be found in rivers and streams, downstream of cornfields, golf courses, or domestic lawns, where it is used as a weed killer.

Dr. Hayes and associates found that one-third of the frogs raised in the water with Atrazine behaved like females, even sending out chemicals to attract other males. Out of the  forty frogs he studied, four had high levels of estrogen, and two actually developed female reproductive organs.

The EPA has determined that up to 3 parts per billion of Atrazine are safe in U.S. waterways. But according to Dr. Hayes’s studies, that’s too much. Even minute amounts potentially harm frogs—and humans as well. Endocrine disruptors have been associated with various cancers and reproductive birth defects in boys.

Recently, sixteen cities in six Midwestern states sued the Swiss corporation Syngenta, which manufactures the chemical, for the costs of expensive water filtration systems needed to keep drinking water safe.

Scientists at Syngenta continue to assert that Atrazine is completely safe (despite the fact that it’s been banned in Europe).   When I looked up the topic on google news, I found two Syngenta-sponsored sites with names such as “Atrazine Safe to Wildlife” and “Atrazine and Frogs.” Their website denies the “baseless activist” claims.

As Randall Amster writes in his post, Silent Spring Has Sprung, on Truthout, and reprinted on the Huffington Post, these denials from Syngenta are similar to the backlash Rachel Carson received from chemical companies when she exposed the dangers of DDT in her groundbreaking 1961 book Silent Spring. He writes:

In [Silent Spring], Carson famously argued that the pesticide DDT was responsible for negative impacts on the environment, animals and humans alike, despite disinformation spread by industry and government officials about its purported safety and utility in agribusiness. Silent Spring is often credited with starting the modern environmental movement, yet today we are facing equivalent challenges and similar campaigns to conceal the potential dangers of toxic chemicals in our midst.

Below is a video from the Huffington Post Investigative Fund about atrazine:

See also the New York Times article, “Berkeley Scientist Studies Raise Corporate Hackles.”

01/20/10

A Field of Nightmares? Atrazine, Corn, and Frogs

I’ve always had a sentimental attachment to cornfields—from the magical cornfield in Field of Dreams to the real cornfield across the road from a house I lived in during college years. My mother was born and raised in Iowa and I’m descended from farmers.

cornfield-medium

But chemicals, in particular Atrazine, used as herbicides on cornfields might be poisoning frogs (and people), and turning fields of dreams into fields of nightmares.  These herbicides run off cornfields into streams and rivers, and leak through the water-treatment process, contaminating groundwater and drinking-water supplies.

Last summer we blogged about the problems of Atrazine. Research by University of California, Berkeley professor  Dr. Tyrone Hayes, for example, has shown the effects this chemical—an endrocrine disruptor—has on frogs. It can cause birth defects and reproductive problems, including such bizarre deformities as male frogs with eggs in their testes. This past week, as reported in the Washington Post, new research at the University of Ottawa found that when exposed to Atrazine fewer tadpoles reached froglet stage. Atrazine appears to affect estrogen in humans as well and has been connected with ferility problems, cancer, and birth defects.

Warning in a Cornfield

Warning in a Cornfield

The EPA, under the Obama administration, has launched a review of the chemical that will continue until fall 2010. It will look closely at Atrazine and other endrocrine disruptors, which might result in tighter restrictions on their use. While this sounds hopeful, Atrazine’s primary manufacturer, Syngenta, has strong ties and influence within the EPA. (Atrazine is banned in Europe, where perhaps industry and government aren’t as closely intertwined as they are in the U.S.).

For more information, please see this PDF,  a report by the Land Stewardship Project and the Pesticide Action Network North America titled The Syngenta Corporation: The Cost to the Land, People, and Democracy.

01/6/10

Pet Frogs Associated with Recent Salmonella Outbreak

Yesterday we received information from the American Veterinary Medical Association that about 80 people in 28 states have now become ill in a salmonella outbreak associated with pet frogs. More than three-quarters of the illnesses involved children younger than 10.

Bacteria matching the outbreak strain were found in aquariums that contained aquatic frogs. The Center for Disease Control and the Utah Department of Public Health (the site of at least 6 cases) are investigating animal distributors and vendors as possible sources of the outbreak.

Symptoms of Salmonella include: diarrhea, fever, and cramps 12-72 hours after the infection enters the body. The infection persists four to seven days and even longer for infected individuals with weaker immune systems.

People who should make explicit efforts to avoid contact with the animals are children, especially those younger than five years old, elderly people, and people with weak immune systems.

Given the findings, the Central for Disease Control advises the following:

  • Amphibians should not be kept in child-care centers.
  • Habitats containing amphibians should not be kept in a child’s bedroom, especially children aged less than 5 years.
  • Do not allow amphibians to roam freely through the house, especially in food preparation areas. Keep amphibians out of kitchens and other areas where food and drink is prepared or served to prevent contamination.
  • Habitats and their contents should be carefully cleaned outside of the home. Use disposable gloves when cleaning and do not dispose of water in sinks used for food preparation or for obtaining drinking water.
  • Do not bathe animals or their habitats in your kitchen sink. If bathtubs are used for these purposes, they should be thoroughly cleaned afterward. Use bleach to disinfect a tub or other place where amphibian habitats are cleaned.
  • Children aged less than 5 years should not clean habitats.
  • Always wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after cleaning habitats.

Aquatic frogs, such as the African Dwarf frog, are the frogs sold in Brookstone’s Frog-O-Sphere kits and other kits. This salmonella outbreak is another good reason to avoid these live frog kits.