A collaboration of experts from The Mountain Chicken Recovery Programme, including Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, are now working to establish a chytrid-free refuge for the mountain chicken frog, using first-of-its-kind environmental manipulation techniques.
According to a post on the Durrell Wildlife blog, “this pioneering release is the first stage of a project that uses environmental manipulation techniques in an attempt to protect the species from the deadly fungal pathogen, believed to be the cause of over 500 documented extinctions and declines of amphibians worldwide.”
The plan is to manually increase the temperature of the semi-wild enclosure to a level where the chytrid fungus is believed to be unable to survive. In doing this, they hope the mountain chickens will be able to thrive on Montserrat.
The project is a collaboration between Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Chester Zoo, Bristol Zoo Gardens, Nordens Ark and the Government of Montserrat.
Read the full details of the experiment and release here… https://www.durrell.org/wildlife/news/world-first-critically-endangered-frog/
