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Subject: [akherps] JUNEAU EMPIRE chytrid article
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 07:44:39 -0800
FYI....I'm not totally thrilled with this article, but here it is.
I suggested several other researchers but the reporter must
have been up against a deadline.
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Meg Hahr
Ecologist
Kenai Fjords National Park
PO Box 1727
Seward, AK 99664
(907) 224-7542
(907) 224-7505 (fax)
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Juneau Empire
Sunday May 21, 2006
Toad die-off: Klondike toads have fungus among them
By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
Scouting the ponds for polliwogs is a May ritual for many Alaska
Panhandle residents.
But Barbara Kalen, born and raised in Skagway, has been
frustrated in her search for newly hatched toads for about five
years.
Kalen hasn't been able to find the thousands of tiny Western
toads at their old haunts at ponds around Dyea.
So many baby toads used to blanket the ground near the Chilkoot
Trail, which begins in Dyea, that it was hard not to step on
them.
All that has changed, though. Western toads are just one of many
amphibians that now are harder to find throughout Southeast
Alaska. "I have not even tried this year," Kalen confessed on
Friday morning.
A lethal fungus may a culprit in the virtual disappearance of
Dyea's Western toads, national park officials announced last
week.
In April, five out of nine Western toads from the Dyea area of
the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park tested
positively for the lethal chytrid fungus.
This is the first such diagnosis of the exotic chytrid fungus in
an Alaska toad. Additional testing is planned this summer at the
Klondike and elsewhere in the Panhandle.
"Everyone is sort of surprised that (the fungus) is in Alaska,"
said Meg Hahr, a national park biologist based in Seward.
Hahr said the chytrid (pronounced KIT-rid) fungus is implicated
in major die-offs and extinctions of amphibians around the
world.
The fungus - which damages the skin and makes it difficult for
toads to breathe and absorb water - was discovered in 1998 and
it is still mysterious, Hahr added.
The fungus seems to be transferred by direct contact between
infected animals and exposure to infected water. Though the
origin of the fungus is uncertain, it may have spread from
African clawed frogs, which were exported worldwide through
international trade of the specimens that began in the 1930s.
One dead frog on the Kenai Peninsula tested positively for the
chytrid fungus in 2002. It's the only other known case in
Alaska.
"Hopefully people can take some additional swab samples (on
amphibians) this summer, and get an idea of its distribution,"
Hahr said.
People who visit frog and toad breeding areas should be careful
not to assist the spread of fungus contamination, she said.
For example, national park personnel disinfect their footwear
and equipment before and between pond visits. Anyone who visits
amphibian breeding areas should follow the same guidelines,
according to the National Park Service.
The Park Service also asks that people avoid handling toads.
Toads may be more susceptible to the fungus than other
amphibians because they only take water though their abdomen,
Hahr said.
The testing of the Klondike Western toads occurred last summer,
but results were delayed because of a laboratory backlog.
Scientists swabbed the toads' abdomens and foot webbing 25 times
each with sterile cotton and then released the toads back to the
wild.
The Park Service began studying the decline of Western toads in
the Klondike Gold Rush park in 2003. Over two summers, surveys
showed tadpoles at only six of the 39 locations visited.
In 2005, the park joined with the U.S. Geological Survey to link
the park's research on toads with a major national study to
monitor trends in amphibian decline.
Other factors of amphibian decline, besides fungus, include
habitat loss, competition from invasive species, ultraviolet
radiation, chemical contaminants, disease and climate change.
⢠Elizabeth Bluemink can be reached at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Click here to return to story:
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/052106/out_20060521009.shtml
