Zoo saves frogs from croaking
It’s not often that industrial Gauteng helps to heal and restore nature.
That will happen next month when 400 endangered frogs — born and bred in captivity in Johannesburg — are taken about 600km to coastal swamplands in KwaZulu-Natal.
Pickersgill’s reed frog is slightly bigger than a human thumbnail. It is found only in KwaZulu-Natal and its habitat is tiny.
According to Jeanne Tarrant of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the current living space of this species is restricted to roughly 25 small and scattered wetlands that add up to 12km².
Because the frogs are so small, it is difficult to know how many there are. Frog experts realised that the animals’ future was bleak unless the frogs’ diminished living space could be protected and expanded, enabling their numbers to multiply rapidly.
This prompted the collection of 30 of the amphibians from KwaZulu-Natal nearly a decade ago and moving them to the first endangered species breeding project for amphibians at the Joburg Zoo.
The numbers multiplied about tenfold and 200 captive-bred frogs were taken to KZN in 2018 and released at Mount Moreland’s Froggy Pond, near the King Shaka International Airport, and at a wetland site at Prospecton, close to the old Durban airport.
A second batch of about 400 frogs is ready to leave Gauteng. They will be released next month at the Buffelsdraai landfill and biological restoration site near Verulam.
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife amphibian expert Adrian Armstrong said the frogs were not out of danger but the latest breeding project should help ensure their survival if adequate living space is set aside from industrial, residential and agricultural developments.
The species is named after the herpetologist Martin Pickersgill, who discovered the species in Mount Edgecombe, Durban, in 1978.
The decline of the species has been largely due to the rapid expansion of farming, draining of wetlands and other developments along the province’s coast.