UK Press: Crisis for World's Amphibians

[John]

BBC News, London, UK, 6th October 2009: Crisis for World's Amphibians

"It is a time of crisis for the world's amphibians, says Helen Meredith. In this week's Green Room she says we may be facing our last chance to save this important group of animals.

A third of all species of amphibian are threatened with extinction; nearly half are in decline, and they are the most threatened of all the vertebrate groups.
If allowed to continue, the projected losses would constitute the largest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
But first things first; what are amphibians and why should we care about their decline?
Amphibians are one of nature's less familiar groups - an issue that presents major challenges to establishing the conservation action they so urgently require.
They have been around on the planet for about 360 million years, arising over 100 million years before the first mammal and 200 million years before the first bird.
Great survivors
Modern amphibians comprise frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians (limbless amphibians), and number in excess of 6,000 species to date.
More than 20% are not understood well enough to be assigned any conservation status and it is estimated that up to 10,000 species may exist in total."


Continued:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8292690.stm