In 2021, we launched a nueva iniciativa destinada a potenciar la población de sapos boreales del estado, a species listed as endangered in Colorado and New Mexico, in collaboration with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). Starting with 95 adult toads from CPW’s Instalación de restauración de especies acuáticas nativas in Alamosa, our amphibian experts spent more than six months preparing them for breeding and nurturing their offspring leading up to their release into the wild.
And on June 20, teams from both organizations trekked to wetlands near Creede, Colo. to release more than 2,200 boreal toad tadpoles that will hopefully host an established population of rare amphibians. This was the second successful breeding and release, including reintroducing more than 600 tadpoles in Gunnison National Forest in 2022.
DZCA Chief Conservation Office
Once common in montane habitats between 8,000-12,000 feet in the Southern Rocky Mountains, the boreal toad has experienced dramatic population declines over the past two decades. The decline appears to be related to habitat loss and primarily infection by the chytrid fungus, which can infect most of the world’s 7,000 amphibian species and is linked to major population declines and extinctions globally. Officials estimate there may be as few as 800 wild adult toads left in Colorado.
“It was a very special day to join our partners from Denver Zoo to release boreal toad tadpoles that the Zoo produced at their facility,” said Daniel Cammack, Southwest Region Native Aquatic Species Biologist with CPW. “We’ve been stocking tadpoles at this site for about six years now, and we have high hopes that the tadpoles we introduced will contribute to a self-sustaining breeding population. It’s a pretty big win for boreal toad conservation.”
We have been conserving endangered and critically endangered amphibian species for more than 18 years. In 2018, DZCA became the first zoo in the Northern Hemisphere to criar con éxito ranas del lago Titicaca en peligro crítico and has since provided more than 250 healthy frogs to zoos and aquariums in the U.S. and Europe. In 2021, we successfully bred critically endangered Panamanian golden frogs as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s Species Survival Plan. And in 2022, DZCA and CPW released the first brood—more than 600 tadpoles—from the joint initiative to support boreal toads in a remote wetland in Gunnison National Forest.
CPW has devoted significant resources for more than 30 years toward boreal toad research and continues to explore ways to recover the species. Specifically, CPW researchers focus on developing methodologies for reintroducing toads in historically occupied habitats, detecting chytrid fungus in the wild, marking and identifying individual toads, and improving breeding success at the Native Aquatic Species Restoration Facility, which plays a critical role in the state’s efforts to restore populations of boreal toads.
We estimate that it will take many years to bring the species back to a level where it is secure in the Southern Rocky Mountains, and expect the collaboration to be a multi-year program. You can help by joining our Equipo de conservación del sapo boreal where you’ll monitor the species’ high-country habitat to help us understand the health of current populations and determine suitable locations for future reintroduction of toads bred at DZCA’s campus in Denver!
