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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/foster-endangered-species-in-your-home-citizen-conservation/>
"When special-education teacher Thomas Ackermann comes home from work, he heads
straight for the basement of his house in Aachen, Germany. Behind the door of
his self-described “man cave” lies a four-by-four-meter world of mossy logs,
trickling water and humid air — an astonishing micro-jungle he has built in a
dozen terrariums.
“I could watch them for hours,” he says, pointing at thumbnail-sized
electric-yellow poison dart frogs that hop between bromeliads. But the rarest
residents are the ones he tends most carefully: Ecuadorian stump-foot toads —
delicate green amphibians with black speckles and neon-orange feet. Barely
larger than half a thumb, they were declared extinct 15 years ago.
The culprits were habitat loss, a warming climate and a lethal fungal disease,
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which has contributed to declines in hundreds
of amphibian species worldwide.
Then, in 2010, conservationists found a tiny surviving pocket of stump-foot
toads in a remote Andean valley.
Ecuadorian researchers launched an emergency breeding program.
Today, Ackermann is one of the few people keeping the species alive. Not in a
zoo. Not in a laboratory. But in his basement at home."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
