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Habitat loss, climate change hit amphibians

Ian Sample

FIFTY OF the world's leading conservation experts are calling for an urgent rescue mission to save frogs, newts, and other amphibians from extinction. They believe fast action is needed to save the planet's 5,743 amphibian species after research showing that 32.5 per cent are threatened.

Up to 122 amphibian species have become extinct since 1980. Since the 1960s these vertebrates have gone into sharp decline as humans encroached on their habitat. Climate change and infectious diseases have also taken their toll.

Writing on Friday in the U.S. journal Science, the conservationists propose a $400 million initiative, the Amphibian Survival Alliance, to dispatch "rapid response" teams to collect endangered amphibians for captive breeding.

Amphibians are considered delicate sentinels of environmental change. Sudden collapses in their populations in the 1980s and 1990s sparked research.

The alliance will boost existing conservation efforts to protect species such as the dyeing poison frog, the splash-backed poison frog, and the poison arrow frog. Native to South and Central America, these brightly coloured animals are extremely sensitive to logging and building infringing on their homes.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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