Dominica's mountain chicken frog disappears in 'fastest extinction ever recorded

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/15/dominicas-mountain-chicken-frog-disappears-in-fastest-extinction-ever-recorded

Dominica’s mountain chicken frog disappears in ‘fastest extinction ever recorded’

Ecological calamity on the Caribbean island demonstrates how quickly wildlife can be destroyed, scientists say

Robin McKie
Sun 15 Oct 2023 02.00 EDT

They were once so numerous they were cooked as the national dish of Dominica. Every year, thousands of mountain chicken frogs, roasted with garlic and pepper, were eaten by islanders and tourists.

Two decades later, the animal – one of the world’s largest species of frog – has in effect disappeared from the Caribbean island. A series of ecological disasters has reduced its former healthy, stable population of hundreds of thousands of animals to a total of 21 frogs, according to scientists’ most recent survey.

The startling rapidity of Leptodactylus fallax’s decline has stunned biologists who believe it is one of the fastest eradications of a wild animal ever recorded, an ecological calamity that demonstrates how quickly wildlife can be damaged and destroyed.

“This is an amazing animal,” said Andrew Cunningham, head of wildlife epidemiology for the Zoological Society London (ZSL). “It can grow to around 20cm in length and weigh more than a kilo. Both males and females play important roles in raising their young and it was one of Dominica’s top predators that ate insects, small mammals, snakes – and other frogs.”

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[Ferrets are Cool]

1. We are such a destructive species. We have caused the extinction of so many wonderful creatures.

Passenger pigeons were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation, which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. In 1900, the last confirmed wild bird was shot in southern Ohio.