Green Options

A French bus driver working in Germany has been suspended from work after she stopped her double-decker bus to save a frog from being flattened under the wheels.

Passengers, already hopping mad because of a 20-minute delay, were incensed when Christina Pommerel, 46, jumped from her seat, rescued the frog, put it in a box and set it free on the side of the road.

Ms Pommerel, who has been driving buses for 13 years in the southern German city of Regensburg, told German daily Die Welt, “I couldn’t just squash it. I did my job and saved a life.”

Scientists and veterinarians met in San Diego, in February 2009, to protect amphibian species threatened with extinction by the chytrid fungus. Chytrid is already associated with declines in amphibian populations in Central America and Australia and is spreading quickly in the wild.

The photograph is of the critically endangered Panamanian golden frog (Atelopus zetecki) which communicates by waving its hands because, unlike other frogs, it has no eardrums.

Chytridiomycosis (cytrid) is an infectious disease of amphibians, caused by the chytrid Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a non-hyphal zoosporic fungus. The skin of infected frogs thickens and interferes with its ability to absorb water and electrolytes. Frogs in the wild which are already in danger of extinction from habitat loss, the pet trade, and climate change now face this additional threat.

A new report shows that atrazine, the second-most widely used agricultural herbicide in America, poses a serious threat to amphibians.

For a long time now, I’ve been hearing about the worrisome disappearance of amphibians around the world.  One third of amphibian populations on Planet Earth are threatened with extinction.  A new study finds that atrazine, the second most widely used farm herbicide in the country, is partly responsible for this decline.

A team of scientists on an expedition to study frogs has found the “rarest frog in the world” in Costa Rica. Thought to be extinct for over 20 years, last year hope was renewed when an individual male from the species was found by one of the team’s researchers. Last week the team found a pregnant female, suggesting that this species is still reproducing and has not been made extinct by a deadly skin fungus that is decimating amphibian populations.