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201723Sep12:12

Aquar­ium effort boosts wild pop­u­la­tion of Canada’s North­ern leop­ard frog

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 23 Sep­tem­ber 2017 | mod­i­fied 23 Sep­tem­ber 2017
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Northern Leopard FrogNorth­ern leop­ard frog (Litho­bates pip­i­ens) near Welland Canal in Ontario, Canada.
Image credit: Bal­cer, at Wikipedia. Image in the pub­lic domain.

In the marshy waters of inte­rior British Colum­bia (B.C.) in the US, 400 North­ern leop­ard frog tad­poles were released on 17 August as part of ongo­ing con­ser­va­tion efforts to boost the endan­gered species’ wild pop­u­la­tion. North­ern leop­ard frogs (Litho­bates pip­i­ens) are among the most at-​risk amphib­ian species in the world. For the past five years, Van­cou­ver Aquar­ium, an Ocean Wise ini­tia­tive, has suc­cess­fully bred and released thou­sands of healthy tad­poles. The Aquar­ium is part of the North­ern Leop­ard Frog Recov­ery Team that imple­ments con­ser­va­tion actions as out­lined in the North­ern Leop­ard Frog recov­ery strat­egy.

We’re begin­ning to see the impact of our efforts to repop­u­late B.C.‘s most at-​risk amphib­ian, and have found ani­mals that have sur­vived the win­ter and are being located again year after release. There has also been evi­dence of breed­ing activ­ity with adult males call­ing, all of which are indi­ca­tions of the programme’s suc­cess to date.

Kris Ross­ing, senior biol­o­gist at Van­cou­ver Aquarium.

This long win­ter, how­ever, did have an impact on some of the wild pop­u­la­tions as well as the frogs at the Aquar­ium. Some were slower to breed or didn’t at all. Cli­mate change affects the food chain from the bot­tom to the top, and frogs are an impor­tant indi­ca­tor species of envi­ron­men­tal health. Over­all, we’ve seen our con­ser­va­tion efforts make a dif­fer­ence, as we col­lec­tively move the nee­dle a lit­tle bit every year through this vital programme.”

On 17 August, a small team trav­elled by air to the release site near Brisco, B.C., and intro­duced 390 tad­poles and 10 froglets to help repop­u­late the vul­ner­a­ble Rocky Moun­tain pop­u­la­tion. The day began at 6 a.m., with the tad­poles and froglets care­fully trans­ported to Van­cou­ver air­port, where they were loaded on to a plane, fol­lowed by two hours by car, and a trek into the marshy wet­lands of Brisco, which lies along the Colum­bia River near the Alberta border.


(Source: ZooBorns YouTube channel)

Van­cou­ver Aquar­ium was the first aquar­ium to breed these amphib­ians as part of an assur­ance pop­u­la­tion and is part of a world­wide effort, along with other zoos and aquar­i­ums, to con­serve this and other amphib­ian species under the Amphib­ian Ark (AArk) project. In total, the Aquar­ium has reared and released more than 5,500 tad­poles since 2013.

A key com­po­nent of the process involves a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Dr. Vance Trudeau at the Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa and the use of a hor­mone treat­ment he cre­ated called Amphiplex. The treat­ment, which for the frogs is a pain­less injec­tion, has been used to help induce spawn­ing and spur the ani­mals into amplexus — when the male mounts and holds the female frog to induce ovu­la­tion and then fer­til­izes the egg masses as they are laid.

Begin­ning in the 1970s, pop­u­la­tions of North­ern leop­ard frogs across west­ern Canada declined by the mil­lions, mak­ing them one of the most at-​risk amphib­ian species, espe­cially in B.C. Research con­tin­ues into the cause of these sharp declines in the Rocky Moun­tain pop­u­la­tion of the North­ern leop­ard frogs. The Rocky Moun­tain pop­u­la­tion that occurs in B.C. is listed as Endan­gered by the Com­mit­tee on the Sta­tus of Endan­gered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), and is on the provin­cial Red List.

Once found at many sites in the Koote­nay and Okana­gan regions, the Rocky Moun­tain pop­u­la­tion began to decrease to a point where only one wild pop­u­la­tion, in Cre­ston Val­ley, existed. In 2004, a sec­ond pop­u­la­tion was rein­tro­duced in the Upper Koote­nay Flood­plain, near Bum­mers Flats, as part of the recov­ery effort for this species. A third pop­u­la­tion was rein­tro­duced in 2013 at a site in the Colum­bia Marshes.

There are two other pop­u­la­tions of North­ern leop­ard frogs in Canada; the Prairie North­ern leop­ard frogs have reoc­cu­pied some of their for­mer range on the Prairies, and as a result have been down-​listed to be of spe­cial con­cern by COSEWIC. North­ern leop­ard frogs in east­ern Canada are clas­si­fied as not being at risk.

(Source: Van­cou­ver Aquar­ium media release, 18 August 2017)


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