Zoo Program Will Preserve 50 Amphibian Species - 3,000 Of 6,000 Species On Earth Likely Gone By 2015

OMAHA, Neb. -- The global amphibian crisis continues to grow as conservationists estimate that up to half of all species of amphibians will go extinct in the next five to 10 years. Dr. Lee Simmons said Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo is taking the lead on a global scale to help save the world's amphibians. Inside a quarantined area at the zoo, conservation effort is under way.

Trace Hardin, a reptile and amphibian keeper at the zoo, along with Simmons, said habitat loss, disease and pollution threaten the world's amphibian population. Together with chitryd fungus, the circumstances are combing to make the amphibian population disappear at what the researchers called an alarming rate. Of the 6,000 known species, experts believe up to 3,000 will disappear within the next decade.

Simmons said the chitryd fungus has been disastrous. He said it was spread around the globe by the African clod frog. Humans shipped the frogs to different countries for pregnancy tests. The African clod frog is unaffected by the chitryd fungus, but the fungus kills most other amphibians. "If you take that big of a biomass out of the environment, the ripple effect has to be horrendous," Simmons said.

Henry Doorly's amphibian conservation area will hold up to 50 species of amphibians. Each room is a biologically isolated room with fresh air, it's own heating and air conditioning system, Simmon said. Omaha's zoo, along with others, are trying to save whatever amphibian species they can. They gather populations near extinction, put them in captivity, breed them and then try to reintroduce them to their habitat. A remnant population of the species are kept in captivity as a safety net.

EDIT

http://www.ketv.com/health/13642751/detail.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756/

..tragic that it has come to this.

"If you take that big of a biomass out of the environment, the ripple effect has to be horrendous,"

"Each room is a biologically isolated room with fresh air, it's own heating and air conditioning system"

It must be me, because those two sentences seem to be complete opposites.

"They gather populations near extinction, put them in captivity, breed them and then try to reintroduce them to their habitat. A remnant population of the species are kept in captivity as a safety net"

We DO NOT get to have everything. What will this accomplish? We aren't going to stop polluting the planet, and the more energy we use, the more we will pollute. If we're going to do that, we're going to lose species because of it.

We take them from their home(after fucking with it I guess we feel bad), isolate them from the world(try and take evolution out of the question), and then we get to choose who gets to go back and who we keep as a safety net(because we feel bad again).

Awwwww, we feel bad because we fucked up the planet. Yeah, lets not actually change what we do, lets take the rest of life out from the world into our isolated, air conditioned system. That'll make everything better. We're so smart. We're so evolved(because we equate evolution and progress). The self-appointed guardians of the planet will save everything. We can do it. I know we can. We just have to get rid of the natural world. Imagine what we could do if we could just breed whatever we wanted in isolated chambers inside the cages of zoos. We're so good. See how much we care? See, no consequences. We can do whatever we want as long as we have the safety net. That way, if we kill a few species because of nothing more than our own ambition to ascend to some higher being(if we can put a stop to evolution, we can do anything), we can just replace them. Then we can feel better.

Whatever, I'm tired of it.

it's like a bizarre story--half a Class going extinct for the sake of pregnancy testing (even if inadvertently)