Frog’s death a sad sign for us all

LIKE most people on Earth, you’ve probably never heard of Toughie the frog. Maybe that’s my fault, and that of other environmental jour nalists like me. Maybe I should have done more to tell you about this remarkable frog when there was still time.

But up against issues such as #Guptagate and #FeesMustFall, surely the unremarkable death of a little-known Panamanian tree frog wouldn’t make headlines? Toughie did matter, though.

Not only because of those peering, gigantic eyes and giant webbed feet that he would use to glide through tree canopies like magic, but because Toughie was the last of his kind ( Ecnomiohyla rabborum), left on Earth.

As a symbol of the global extinction crisis, he even had his own Wikipedia page. In its introduction – now turned epitaph – it reads: “Toughie was the last known Rabbs fringe-limbed tree frog. The species are thought to be extinct in the wild with only one specimen – Toughie – remaining in captivity, up until his death on September 26, 2016.”

Yet when he was discovered dead, in his enclosure, the world didn’t bat an eyelid.

“It’s tragic that a species has gone extinct and tragic that people haven’t noticed,” says Jeanne Tarrant, the manager of the threatened amphibian programme at the Endangered Wildlife Trust. “Or if they have, that it doesn’t strike a chord within them that we need to be worried about our species’ survival.”

For Tarrant and other conservationists, this is a good example of what’s happening right now.

“People are increasingly aware of the issues facing biodiversity, climate change, but the failure to link biodiversity to us means that we somehow stay complacent,” she says.

Sure, Toughie had his admirers. National Geographic reports how his image was projected on to St Peter’s Basilica and his call played “so the world could see and hear him”. He even met racing car drivers and actors. But like Kenyan’s Northern White Rhino – there are three left – Toughie was doomed from the start.

Collected as an adult in Panama by a team of frantic researchers, who witnessed how the species’ habitat was wiped out by human activity and decimated by chytridimoycosis, a devastating fungal disease, Toughie was transported to the Atlanta Botanical Garden in Georgia.

There, he was placed inside a “biosecure” enclosure, which housed only critically endangered animals. Toughie was given his name by his caretaker because he did not like to be handled, pinching anyone who tried to touch him. Breeding efforts failed to replicate the species.

For scientists like Tarrant, Toughie’s death – and the end of another species – is a call to action. So many species could be dying out before they are even ever discovered.

In some ways, Toughie’s death – and that of so many other species that fly under the radar – leaves me asking tough questions about my own work. Why is it that some species matter more than others? Why should an elephant matter more than a butterfly?

Last month, I covered the CoP17 Cites conference, fully setting out to cover the little-known species, to highlight their plight. In the end, my own stories – like most other media – were largely focused on charismatic mammal species, not the arboreal alligator lizard or the psychedelic rock gecko, who are increasingly threatened, and could vanish like Toughie one day, without a care.

In Why do Species matter, a 1981 paper, researcher Lilly-Marlene Russow notes that “our obligation must ultimately rest on the value – often aesthetic – of individual members of certain species… We value and protect animals because of their aesthetic value, not because they are members of a given species”.

Even those striking, charismatic species are imperilled, notes Tarrant. “While I think it’s important to have charismatic species such as the lions and polar bears to grab public attention, the fact is that we’re not even doing a particularly good job of protecting these. There is a very real possibility that many of these great species will not be found in the wild for our grandchildren to see. It is not that these species matter more, it is that they are iconic and attractive.”

So, why should we worry about a frog disappearing off the face of the planet? The death of Toughie is just another example in a rapidly growing list of extinct amphibians – some 40 species are listed as officially extinct according to the IUCN Red List.

“And 50 percent of those remaining don’t have very good odds either,” says Tarrant. “This represents not just a loss of species, but a loss of their habitats, and most importantly the loss of freshwater habitat – and water is of course a resource we all need.

“Already much of our water is polluted, diverted and again, with burgeoning human populations, this is simply not sustainable. The magnitude of what is happening to our finite planet is not quite hitting people, largely because water still comes out the taps, food is seemingly abundant and easy to purchase, waste is out of sight, out of mind, and climate change may not be directly affecting us just yet.”

It’s our easy, everyday actions that can have a ripple effect to help protect threatened species and the valuable ecosystems they support.

“Save water, make sustainable choices in the food you eat, minimise and recycle the waste you produce,” says Tarrant.

Toughie was the last tree frog of his kind – now he’s extinct