Frog extinct due to disease returns to nature: Discover the “spas” and “saunas” that saved it!

This beautiful amphibian is being reintroduced to the wetlands around Australia’s capital, Canberra, after suffering a population collapse due to the chytrid fungus.

Known as the green and gold bell frog, these animals were bred in captivity and will be released in groups of 15 into ponds and wetlands after being immunized against a disease caused by the fungus.

They will also be released into areas where “frog saunas” have been built, which are basically piles of black bricks covered by a pyramid of rigid plastic sheets. Slots and gaps in bricks are perfect for frogs to shelter in, and high temperatures are lethal to the chytrid fungus.

Chytrid has been responsible for extinctions and population collapses around the world, and scientists are only now beginning to understand how to protect amphibians from it.

Green and golden bell frogs have been thankfully saved from such a fate, and scientists at the University of Canberra working to restore them to the wild feel the reintroduction has been a bit like watching your children move house for the first time.

Associate Professor Simon Clulow said it was “quite incredible”, because “as far as we know, it became extinct [en el ACT] around 1981.

ACT represents the Australian Capital Territory, the special administrative area around Canberra.

180 of the frog saunas have been installed around the ponds where more than 300 captive-bred frogs will be released. Each female can produce around 8,000 eggs in a single mating season, so while the population is predicted to proliferate rapidly, the offspring will not be immune to chytrid. For them, saunas should help.

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“The pathogen itself is quite susceptible to high temperature—it doesn’t like temperatures above 25°C; 27 or 28°C is quite lethal for it,” Clulow told the Guardian. “A lot of Australian frogs…like those temperatures—the green and gold bell frog prefers to be around 30°C.”

30°C is approximately 88°F. Outside the ACT, frogs have clung to isolated pools where the water contains some salinity, and these have also been selected in the ACT as ideal sites for relocation, and named ‘frog spas’, for their warm, slightly saline water and sauna complement.

The goal is to quickly reach around 200 of these frogs in each of the 15 ponds.