Regulating live trade could help prevent amphibian extinctions from "Bd" Conservation organisation Defenders of Wildlife has filed two petitions, one with the US Department of the Interior and the other with the Department of Agriculture, urging them to immediately regulate live amphibian imports in the pet, food, scientific and live bait trades. The aim is to block the deadly amphibian disease Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, known as “Bd” or as the "chytrid fungus", which poses a major threat to native amphibians, having already driven numerous frog species to extinction worldwide.
Live amphibian imports are currently unregulated, creating excessive and unnecessary risk that the Bd pathogen will continue to enter, spread within and be shipped out of the US. This unregulated trade, primarily for pet use and as live animals for consumption as frog legs, threatens the survival of many amphibians, including dozens of US and foreign species listed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act.
Prominent amphibian experts have endorsed these petitions, which provide key factual and legal analysis on how to tackle this emerging epidemic.
Peter T. Jenkins, director of international conservation for Defenders of Wildlife, has urged regulation of live amphibian imports to help stem the spread of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis:
“It is critical that the US follow the latest international animal health standards to ensure that the massive volumes of live amphibian imports don't continue to carry this deadly disease. Frogs and salamanders worldwide are going extinct due to Bd infections, but we can help them now by cleaning up this trade.”
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