Conservation Internship at Durrell 2011

The Herpetology department at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

Due to the work that we are carrying out in Bolivia the International Training Centre of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust ( www.durrell.org ), along with other biologists throughout South America such as those we met at the Amphibian conservation Course in Titicaca lake in 2009, is supporting us to develop our project in Bolivia.

I have just returned from a four month internship with the Herpetology and Veterinary department at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, where I learnt many new skills.

Working with local species, the Agile frog

Working in the reintroduction programe of the Agile frog

During my Internship I was provided with the skills that are necessary to maximize our impacts on amphibian conservation within Bolivia. During my stay I had the chance to learn about a combination of practical hands-on amphibian husbandry training and complementary training in areas necessary to develop and run amphibian conservation projects.  The four month internship improved my knowledge of amphibian captive breeding, GIS, education, laboratory and veterinary work with amphibian samples and the strategies of designing successful conservation projects. These skills can be applied in the work that we are carrying out in Bolivia, with a particular focus on actions to be taken to conserve the Telmatobius species (such as the Titicaca water frog). 

Learning  in the veterinary department, working with amphibians 

On a personal note it was also a great opportunity for me to learn about the work of other conservationists. I made many new contacts and was given the chance to work with people who are so passionate about conservation.

Working with endangered species, the Mountain chicken

Now with these new techniques, and with renewed energy, I've returned to Bolivia to continue our project and I feel that the experience will allow us to work in better ways in the important conservation of Bolivian amphibians

Learning marking techniques 

Did Chytrid fungus arrived here?

In one of our localities in Oruro, when we were working we talked with some local people and they told us, you are not going to find any frogs, there is no anymore frogs here. And then we started to have a conversation about that.

Our camp in one locality in Oruro

One of the guys asked us if we don’t know about the war of the frogs, he told us you must know because you work with frogs. Well he started with the story about this.

Some years ago (the same time of the war in Iraq, he said) the frogs went to this war to fight and a lot of dead frog were observed this period, he told us that there were a lot of dead frogs everywhere, they died in the war he told us. Since then people don’t see frogs, but recently they starting to see some, they are coming back he said, now that the war is finished they are coming back and now you can see some of them coming back.

This is an interesting information that maybe is a story but also can be related to a possible arrival of Chytrid to the area some years ago and also that can explain that there are no frogs in the area, would be interesting to see if the Chytrid arrived there, because it is not the first time that we hear this kind of stories about frogs disappearing in different areas.

This also can provide important information about this disease and the effects in Bolivian amphibian populations.

Our team in the mountains in search of frogs (Eleonore, MArina, Sarah and Arturo)

Finding new amphibian populations

Our team during the fieldwork (Eleonore, Sarah and Marina)

After our first site we continued our travel to Sucre and we went back to Cajamarca to monitor the Telmatobius simonsi population we found previously, we found some individuals and it seems that even there are very few, they are ok. 

Telmatobius simonsi found in the streams

After that place we moved to Potosi area were we worked in several localities and some of them we found a lot of frogs, of a endemic frog (Hypsiboas alboniger) and also water frog (Telmatobius) in high numbers, it seems that at least this population are in good conditions and we think that this can be a good place to monitor these populations in the future.

Sarah taking notes of the individual she found

In some transects we found even hundreds of frogs and very active and also tadpoles and juveniles of different species. We took data of all the individuals we found and also Chytrid samples to be analyzed later to have a better idea how is the situation in Bolivia with this issue.

With all this information we will be able to prioritize our effort trying to protect the endangered species of Bolivian amphibians.

Hypsiboas alboniger a very common species in some localities

Increasing awareness about amphibians

This time we organized a long trip to different sites of Bolivia, trying to find new populations of Telmatobius and to obtain basic data about population status of the species that we find over there and to carry out educational workshops to teach some facts about amphibians. 

school kids writing down what things they know about amphibians

Our first stop was in Rodeo a small town about 3600 m asl. After our fieldwork we organized educational workshops in the local school, we realized that almost nothing is known about the frogs they have in the surroundings and if they see frogs, sometimes they even kill the frogs.

Giving a talk about amphibians

It was interesting to see how they reacted to the information we provided them and also just watching the frogs in the pictures they were very excited. At the end of the workshop we gave them our book of Bolivian amphibians with pictures and information of the amphibians of Bolivia. also the authorities were very interested and they ask us to go back to the community to keep working in the area, even we did not find endangered species they told us that before Telmatobius was common.

We gave our book of Bolivian amphibians to the school

At the end of the workshop we gave to the school our recently published book of Bolivian amphibians where they can learn about our amphibians and we plan to do the same with other schools accross Bolivia.

Working together for the conservation

Working together allow us better results, this is the reason that this year two students are coming to work with us.

Marina, a student from Bulgaria that is doing her master in Holland, came to do her research with Telmatobius culeus in the Lake Titicaca. She is both using our current methods and improving some things; her work will provide very interesting data about the population size and habitat preference of the Titicaca lake frog--information we can use for conserving these amphibians in the future.

Marina working with us in the Lake 

Eleonore, a student from Belgium, came to work with us for four months in all the localities where we are working. She will also help with the captive breeding of frogs, education of local communities, and her experience will help us to improve our work. This work is part of a internship program that we are developing with some institutions, so both sides will benefit from this joint work.

Sarah (left) and Eleonore (right) waiting to go into the water and search for frogs

Sarah, a biologist from USA that is spending some time in Bolivia, became interested in the project while staying in Cochabamba. She joined our team to help with fieldwork throughout Bolivia, and came along for this trip to Titicaca.

Our team also started to teach English to the people of Sicuani. They requested that we teach them English because their town depends on tourism, and they realized that English is an important skill to develop this activity further. This is a great opportunity to start introducing ideas about conservation to the locals, and to involve them in the recuperation of this critically endangered species' habitat.

             Kids from Sicuani learning English

We are very happy that foreign institutions and individuals are interested in protecting our endangered species. Having students come from all over the world helps us both by providing valuable research and by bringing new ideas and methods to Bolivia.

frog juice

Frogs are under several threats, like habitat damage, invasive species, and overharvestation. Frogs are harvested by people for food, medecine, and spiritual reasons; the Lake Titicaaca frog is no exception. We wanted to witness the trade in frog juice; to do this, we had to cross the border to the small town on the Peruvian side of the lake, where we saw how people prepare this special mix of several ingredients: soup of frogs, sugar, chicken eggs, brewer's yeast, honey, maca, and a raw frog. These ingredients are mixed in a blender and then offered to the local people as a restoritive drink.

Some of the women that buy the juice told us that they drink one or two cups of the juice every week for eye problems, for brain enhancement, and any other heath problems. People selling this juice claim that it offers a “cure” for almost everything, even unknown diseases. Previous studies found that these juices can contain nematodes and salmonella, among other things.

One of the problems of this situation is that a lot of frogs are captured for this activity, even though this species is critically endangered. One frog seller told us that he collects about 500 to 1000 frogs every 15 days. Given that there are a lot of people selling the juice, you can calculate more or less how many frogs are collected every month or year.

Like we saw before, this activity is starting to enter Bolivia. In El Alto city and Cochabamba, you can see people offering the “cure,” while exploiting these frogs. It is necessary to start doing something to avoid this situation in Bolivia and to protect our species. 

big frogs in the lake

One of the species which we are working with is Titicaca water frog, this time we went with our team, Ugo a young student that is going to study biology and want to learn the work that one biologist do normally, together with Ineke, Rodrigo and our friend from the local community Nelson and his father Hilario.

Rodrigo and Ugo in search of frogs with the help of gustavo and their friends

We did our transects diving and with snorkel in the area were normally do and found some dead individuals that we collected, also some small and medium size individuals.

Next day we had a meeting with the new authorities about our work and some ideas for the future and they invited me for the community meeting the next days. This opportunity will allow us to work better with them.

The meeting with the local community

Then with our motor boat we went to one place that we did not check before, first we did not find too much and then a big frog! Then we started to see several frogs, all of them big!! . Later we also found individuals in amplexus it was a nice opportunity to dive and to take pictures and film this couple. Minutes later we spotted a huge frog in the bottom the lake about 5 meters of depth again an opportunity to dive and this was the biggest frog we saw in this 3 years.

A couple of frogs in amplexus

Then in the meeting with the local community after a short presentation they told us that they were interested to work with us and also they want to try to find some way to protect the species, probably with ecotourism, or other activities that will not affect the species and the habitat.

recording the coordinates were we find the frogs

We also saw the Jack Cousteau documentary he filmed in 1973 and the work with the frogs, showing the very interesting findings and estimating the size of the population. It was very interesting to see how the people from the community were very excited about the film because they recognized areas and people.

After this trip we realized that there are some areas that still with big frogs and also in good conditions and we hope that we can work in the conservation of these populations and work together with local communities.

In search of Telmatobius in Chuquisaca II

Trying to find more Telmatobius we went to the area of Cajamarca some kilometers northwest of Sucre, in this area we worked in some streams that was very interesting for Telmatobius.

The first day the first hours just Hypsiboas alboniger present and then… yes! We found the first night two individuals! This time one female and some minutes later a male. They were the same species probably but we need to work with these individuals, now we have some possible founders for our captive breeding projects of Telmatobius.

The following days were interesting also finding some frogs, another species too, like Hypsiboas alboniger and Pleurodema cinereum.

We measured some parameters of the water in the area and some information of the habitat that will allow us to monitor in the future and also took Chytrid samples of all the areas were we worked in this and the previous places. This will allow us to have one idea of how the amphibian populations are going and where the Chytrid fungus is present or not.

In search of Telmatobius in Chuquisaca I

One of the objectives of our project is to find Telmatobius populations and to see how is going with those species. For this purpose we went to Chuquisaca in two areas. Icla located in the southeast of Sucre, the capital. We expended some days in the area looking for Telmatobius, for several days we just found the other common species and one near threatened species (Hypsiboas alboniger). Then just in the last days working in the area we found one big female of Telmatobius with the very yellow belly, Telmatobius simonsi, one species that we were looking for several years finally we found it. But unfortunately we found just one individual in all the time we were over there.

In this place we found a kid that told us that normally he see all the time some frogs in the river and with the description we can say that they are Telmatobius. The kid helped us to look for the frogs, unfortunatelly we could not find any frogs, but was interesting the data that the kid gave us about the area and the frogs.

There is a hope to find more individuals in the future going back to the place. In our return to Sucre we found some children hunting something in the water, we stopped and yes, they were hunting with rocks some frogs and we already found some dead and destroyed frogs, we ask them why were they hunting and they just told us, just for fun… so we took out our equipment and told them if they wanted to help us to study the frogs and we started to measure the water quality, take samples of the skin, taking coordinates and explain them all about amphibians, diversity, how useful are they and why are they important in the area. When we were talking with them they were watching the frogs in different way and also helping us to take samples. We also told them that we are working in all Bolivia with the frogs and they were interested in this different new information about amphibians, previously just a slamy thing that they used to hunt, we don’t know how was the impact of that talk but after we left the kids were talking around the pond and not hunting anymore.

Titicaca water frog conservation workshop

The Titicaca water frog is one species that is critically endangered, the populations size is decreasing based in some studies and it is needed immediate actions to protect this species. One big step was the workshop to establish the strategy for the conservation of Titicaca wat

er frog (Telmatobius culeus) organized by the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano, Denver Zoo

and the SSC/UICN/CBSG Mesoamerica.

This workshop was a big step for the conser

vation of the frog and joined several researchers, conservationist and different stakeholders. One interesting aspect was that this workshop involved people from Peru and Bolivia so we can join efforts to protect the species and the habitat where this unique species is present. We participated in this meeting sharing all the experiences we had with the species in research, education, capacity building and captive breeding of Telmatobius culeus, another important output was the contacts we obtained with different people and institutions that worked or are working with the species. After all this process we are developing our next steps to work with the species not isolated but working with other partners so we provide better results and

impacts for the conservation of the species.

After this activity we also went to the field to find some in

dividuals in the wild and it was interesting to find different individuals just after some minutes swimming in the lake, the same situation like the Bolivian side of the lake.

Being present in this meeting was very useful for us because helped us to see that we are not alone in this work and that we can work together with more people and try to protect the

amphibian biodiversity and their endangered species.

New Container for our frogs

This time with very good news, thanks to the support of some institutions like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Rufford Small Grants, The NAJU (Naturschutzjugend), Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and Amphibian Ark.

Recently we obtained a new container that will be used to hold the endangered species of Telmatobius of Bolivia, holding different species and all of them in the red list of the IUCN.

This new container needs some work but once this is ready, it will really make a difference in our work. Until now we had the first offspring of Telmatobius hintoni, now we want to start with Telmatobius culeus and with the container will allow us to keep them in better conditions and with more options to soon have an offspring.

A hope for Bolivian amphibians in captivity

Amphibian conservation in Bolivia is just in the beginning, almost nothing has been done. Even in some cases there is no information about the species, natural history, habitat requirements and reprod

uction among others. There are some cases

where amphibian species don’t have en

ough time because the different threats like habitat loss, pollution or recently the Chytrid fungus, a disease that is eliminating different population in several places in the world. One strategy that we are

developing besides the resear

ch, capacity building and environmental in-situ education is the captive breeding component, with this work we want to learn as much as possible about some endangered species of Bolivian amphibians mainly focused in the aquatic frogs of the genus Telmatobius which all their species are in the red list of endangered species of the IUCN.

Since a couple of years we are working with some species of Telmatobius that we captured in larvae stages and after keeping them in captivity now

we have several adult individuals that are already breeding and at this stage we have several tadpoles and some young frogs that are the first decedents in captivity.

After this step we are very enthusiastic and now we are going to try to work with other species and also try to breed the species that we have in captivity like Telmatobius culeus, now with our new facility that we are building that will allow us to have a better control of different aspects and now we think we will be able to breed this critically endangered species.

for more information about this:

http://www.amphibianark.org/Newsletters/pdf_newsletters/Amphibian%20Ark%20News%2012.pdf

The facility holding some species of Telmatobius

Observations and work with the frogs

Amphibian course in Tarija

To work with other people, institutions and partners will help to save amphibians in Bolivia; it is very difficult to do the work alone. This is the reason that we are trying to train people in different areas of Bolivia.

teaching the park-guard to take chytrid samples

This time we organized an amphibian course in the distant department of Tarija where park-guards and some workers from conservation and education NGO were present in the course.

The course had a theoretical and practical part in the field

It was very interesting how they were very interested in all the information about the amphibians and during the fieldwork practice everybody was very curious to see and to know more closely those animals that normally they just know as a “slimy thing”. They even didn’t know that were endangered species. Now after this course was they learned basic aspects about amphibians, how to work with them and how to monitor we will start a monitoring program that will provide very important data about those populations.

teaching how to clean the equipment to avoid contamination

One important thing is that also they realized of the threat of the Chytrid fungus and they are going to try to monitor if this disease arrive to the area with our support, because they said “we want to have these frogs in or reserve, we want to protect them”