Blue Dart Poison frogs.
The Canadian Museum of Nature’s new frog exhibit stars exotic species from all over the world, but the ecological threats the show highlights are also being faced by Ottawa-area frogs at a time when conservationists are concerned about amphibian populations around the world.
The exhibit entitled “Frogs: A Chorus of Colours” began on Sept. 25 and will bring together more than 80 live frogs of 18 different species from around the world in an interactive display.
Museum spokesman Dan Smythe says the event not only celebrates the diversity of the species but helps people develop “a better appreciation for frogs’ niche in the ecosystem – and that’s important, as well.”
Visitors will see the African bullfrog, Jabba, which weighs about a kilogram, and Chinese flying frogs that use their webbed feet to glide away from predators sitting in rock-filled recreations of their natural habitats.
The walls of the exhibit are plastered with large colourful photos of extended green legs in mid-jump and bright red eyes. But not all the images are so pleasant; an adjacent wall has pictures of a mutated frog sprouting extra legs and another belly-up with pimply red skin.
Across the world, frogs and other amphibians are facing a massive population decline. A variety of factors are to blame, such as habitat loss, pesticide use and a newly emerging global disease known as chytrid fungus. The results of the infection can be devastating; in some areas of Panama, up to 90 per cent of amphibians were wiped out by it. Sadly, these exotic specimens are not the only ones at risk.
Eastern Ontario was once a centre of biodiversity, “a solid mass of mud before European settlement,” says Fred Schueler, an expert in amphibians and a research associate at the museum. But urban development, he says, has changed that. In some cases other factors involved. The widespread use of atrazine as a pesticide for corn has led to diminishing populations of Ottawa-area leopard frogs, says Schueler. The chemical has destroyed the reproductive cycle of the species – in some cases, by turning male frogs into females.
However, not all disappearances are so easily explained. Schueler says he would have liked to have seen the exhibit spend more time highlighting a local species that is facing a mysterious decline: the Western chorus frog.
The tiny animal is often heard throughout the Ottawa area filling the spring air with its mating calls. But over the last couple of decades – and in some cases, without direct interference from humans – something changed.
“West of Ottawa, they’re still there. But east of Ottawa, they’ve almost disappeared,” he says. Pinpointing a cause is not easy, “I’ve spent the last 20 years trying to figure this out.”