Episode 02: Founding the Amphibian Ark with Dr. Onnie Byers & Dr. Bob Lacy
In Episode 2 of Amphibian Rescue, we trace the rapid shift from alarm to action that led to Amphibian Ark.
After the first (2004) Global Amphibian Assessment confirmed amphibians as the most threatened vertebrates and chytrid fungus spread globally, a 2005 summit in Washington, DC helped shape the first Amphibian Conservation Action Plan and sparked the idea of emergency “survival assurance colonies,” with the idea of an “Amphibian Ark” coined there.
In this episode, Dr. Bob Lacy and Dr. Onnie Byers describe how IUCN’s CBSG/CPSG, ASG, and WAZA mobilized quickly, raised early pledges, and began building amphibian husbandry and collaboration across zoos, field teams, veterinarians, and researchers—helping create a global ex situ safety net that would, in 2007, become Amphibian Ark.
About our guest:
Dr. Onnie Byers was Executive Director of the IUCN SSC CPSG during the early response to the amphibian crisis and later chaired the group from 2011 up to early 2025. She is now Director of Special Projects at CPSG.
Dr. Bob Lacy is a conservation scientist with the Chicago Zoological Society and served as chair of the IUCN SSC CPSG from 2003-2011. He is still Science Advisor and an active member of CPSG.
Documents referenced in the episode:
- First Global Amphibian Assessment:
- Initially published in Science: Simon N. Stuart et al. Status and Trends of Amphibian Declines and Extinctions Worldwide. Science 306,1783-1786(2004).
- The seminal book, Threatened Amphibians of the World (Stuart et al. 2008), presents a more in-depth analysis of the GAA1 results.
- First Amphibian Conservation Action Plan: Gascon, C., Collins, J. P., Moore, R. D., Church, D. R., McKay, J. E. and Mendelson, J. R. III (eds). 2007. Amphibian Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Amphibian Specialist Group. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. 64pp
- Panama Workshop Report: Zippel, K., R. Lacy, and O. Byers (eds.) 2006. CBSG/WAZA Amphibian Ex Situ Conservation Planning Workshop Final Report. IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, Apple Valley, MN 55124, USA.
- CPSG's One Plan Approach (OPA)—the OPA was adopted by the global conservation community through an IUCN resolu 2020 World Conservation Congress
Transcript
[00:00:00] Onnie B.: When I looked at it, I kept thinking: that can't be right. It can't be right that in 2004 we learned about this, and in 2005 we had Kevin Zippel, and in 2006 we had a plan, and in 2007 we had Amphibian Ark, in 2008 we had Year of the Frog. I mean, it's just not possible. How could we have done that, you know?
[00:00:22] Onnie B.: But it was just so incredible, such, such a tribute to the whole ex situ conservation community.
[00:00:34] María B.: Welcome to Amphibian Rescue, the Amphibian Ark Podcast. Amphibian Ark's mission is to rescue amphibians in crisis, especially those that cannot currently be protected in the wild, with the ultimate goal of one day returning them to their safe and restored habitats. I'm your host María Braeuner, and I invite you to join me as we share these inspiring stories of how ex situ conservation, [00:01:00] collaboration, and science are already giving amphibians a second chance and a future back in the wild.
[00:01:13] María B.: A lot happened in such a short span of time to turn all of this panic and uncertainty into a coordinated global response to the amphibian crisis. Part of that response was the creation of Amphibian Ark, and in this episode, we go behind the scenes of how it came to be. But before we dive in, let me give you a sort of cheat sheet for this episode.
[00:01:35] María B.: There's a lot of meetings, and events, and acronyms that can help you make sense of what you're about to listen to. So let's do a quick recap of how this crisis unfolded. As we heard in episode one, mysterious amphibian die-offs happened in the US in the 1970s, even if they went a bit under the radar at the time.
[00:01:56] María B.: In the eighties, similar declines were happening in Central America [00:02:00] and Australia, but not everybody was aware of it. In 1989, at the First World Congress of Herpetology, scientists began comparing notes. Something wasn't right, and it wasn't isolated. But what was happening was not yet clear. Nearly a decade later, the culprit was formally identified: a chytrid fungus was infecting amphibians worldwide. Now we had a name, [00:02:30] but nobody knew how to stop this disease. In the early 2000s, things started moving faster. Karen Lips long-term data, which we talked about in the previous episode, basically confirmed the scale and speed of these declines. At the same time, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, launched the first Global Amphibian Assessment in 2001.
[00:02:57] María B.: If you've ever heard of the Red List categories, [00:03:00] things like endangered species or extinct species, well, these assessments are where those classifications come from. So when the results of this first global amphibian assessment were published three years later in 2004, the picture was undeniable: amphibians were the most threatened group of vertebrates on the planet. They still are today. And in this episode, we'll talk a lot about what happened in 2005, [00:03:30] which was a lot. An amphibian summit took place in Washington DC, which brought together amphibian experts from around the world and laid the framework for the first Amphibian Conservation Action Plan or ACAP.
[00:03:45] Joe M.: And at that meeting, we realized we had a very scary situation in our hands, because, Karen had just demonstrated her spatial-temporal pattern was correct, and that created a situation that none of us were [00:04:00] prepared for, that we can now predict that a place is gonna crash. That was a terrifying situation.
[00:04:07] Joe M.: What do you do when you predict a massive die-off and extinctions of local endemic species? And that, over the course of the few days of this meeting led to the concept of Amphibian Ark. In fact, the term Amphibian Ark was created at that meeting. The only thing we can think of to do when we have these predictions is to [00:04:30] create conservation, survival assurance colonies as an emergency stop gap.
[00:04:35] Joe M.: We can't stop the fungus. The captive communities aren't going to solve the problem, but in the absence of any other thing we can possibly... we cannot think of anything else we can possibly do. We could at least try to save some of the population and its genomics. In doing so, that was the birth of the concept of Amphibian Ark.
[00:04:56] Joe M.: And along with this was the realization that amphibian [00:05:00] husbandry across zoos was not in an advanced state,
[00:05:05] María B.: but there was a specialist group from the IUCN that could help with that. That same year, the crisis was brought to the attention of the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, or CBSG of the IUCN, today known as the Conservation Planning Specialist Group, or CPSG, and it's one of the founding partners of Amphibian Ark.
[00:05:28] María B.: In turn, the CBSG [00:05:30] brought this crisis to the attention of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, WAZA. Another founding partner of Amphibian Ark. The CPSG has been working since the 70s to bring together the ex situ community, like zoos and aquariums, and the in situ community, like field conservationists, to plan and work together for the conservation of threatened species.
[00:05:53] María B.: So when amphibian experts began sounding the alarm, and it was clear that conservation breeding was necessary [00:06:00] for amphibians, as the key liaison between zoos and field conservationists, CPSG was uniquely positioned to step in. Now, let's meet the people that were leading CPSG at the time
[00:06:12] Bob L.: 20 years ago, I'd been working as a conservation scientist for the Chicago Zoological Society for about 20 years before that, uh, starting back in 1985. In that role, I had two complementary areas of work or expertise. One was to work with zoos [00:06:30] and aquariums on developing good breeding programs so they can maintain populations on into the future.
[00:06:35] Bob L.: And the other was to work with wildlife agencies and conservation organizations on evaluating threats to wild populations. And evaluating the likely success of different possible conservation actions. In both of those roles, I was working closely with the CBSG, now the CPSG, and I stepped into the role of Chair of CPSG in 2003.
[00:06:56] Bob L.: So that responsibility was something that I had just [00:07:00] before the amphibian crisis came to light. So therefore, one of my first, actually my first and biggest challenge as CPSG chair was to decide, or help the organization decide, how we're going to respond to the amphibian crisis.
[00:07:13] Onnie B.: 20 years ago I had two little kids. I think they were about six and eight maybe, at home, and I was traveling all around the world doing the work of CPSG. We were, we were doing what, really, [00:07:30] essentially what we do now, we were helping governments and zoos, aquariums and other conservation organizations to develop detailed plans to help to minimize the risk of extinction.
[00:07:44] María B.: You just heard Dr. Bob Lacy and Dr. Onnie Byers. At the time the Amphibian Crisis came into focus, Bob had just stepped in as chair of the CBSG. Onnie was the executive director and would later go on to chair the group up until early 2025. [00:08:00] So I was curious, how did the Amphibian Crisis land on their desks, and how did their response lead to Amphibian Ark?
[00:08:08] Onnie B.: Yeah, I, I can remember really very clearly that the IUCN Red List had done a comprehensive global assessment of mammals and of birds of, you know, those that were known to science. And then in, uh, 2001, they started the [00:08:30] Global Amphibian Assessment and it took, I think, until 2004 when it was published. And it was mind-blowing.
[00:08:42] Onnie B.: I mean, it was a shock that was felt across the entire conservation community. This taxonomic group was decreasing at such a rate that no one could even imagine it. It [00:09:00] was a third of all of the species that were assessed were endangered. Crisis is a perfect word because it was absolutely alarming. And as soon as that word got out, we thought, you know, what's our role going to be in this?
[00:09:18] Onnie B.: You know, zoos are a, a big part of our constituency and they are THE community to respond to this. There isn't anyone else that [00:09:30] can lead this response to the crisis like the zoo community could. So we knew, CPSG knew we had to do something, and we had to do it fast. I really did feel a sense of panic... because I had never, of course, heard of anything like this. I mean, I was being told that science, uh, uh, field researchers were going back to their field site and all the frogs were dead. And it wasn't just [00:10:00] people in one region of one country. It was in all the countries. It swept the planet. We don't, we'd never had heard of anything like that.
[00:10:11] Bob L.: Well, I found out because my, uh, boss at the time, George Rabb, was the previous chairman of the Species Survival Commission of IUCN, and he also helped to lead the Declining Amphibian Task Force, which was the group that first identified that there was a crisis, that species around the world [00:10:30] have seen seemingly dropping numbers very rapidly across many, many species of amphibians.
[00:10:36] Bob L.: So, George came to me and to the CBSG and said, "do something about it". You know, of course he went to many other groups and said the same thing, "do something about it". We can't just sit back and watch amphibians disappear. Um, so back in 2005, um, the need for a response was brought to the CBSG by George and by others.
[00:10:57] Bob L.: And in 2005, in the annual meeting of CPSG, [00:11:00] the crisis with chytrid and collapse of many amphibian populations was brought to light to the zoo community. Um, and the question was asked, "what should CBSG do about this? Is it a role that we have?" And my response was very much the same as where I think many other people in the room had, which was articulated well by Nate Flesness, who is the, at that time, the head of International Species Information System.
[00:11:26] Bob L.: And he said, "we don't have a choice, it's both a professional and an ethical [00:11:30] responsibility to step in and do what we can do to help avert this crisis".
[00:11:35] Onnie B.: Actually, we had arranged for Joe Mendelson to give a presentation about the amphibian crisis, and he, at the last minute, he couldn't be there, so he got this young kid, charismatic, and I'm thinking, who is this guy?
[00:11:53] Onnie B.: He comes in and he blows everybody away because he's absolutely [00:12:00] remarkably articulate and charming. Really so charming and really intelligent and persuasive. Passionate as hell. And, and everybody was mesmerized by his presentation and accepted the fact that this was a crisis and we were the people who had to lead a response in terms of the, the ex situ or, or you know, [00:12:30] captive community. And, and after Kevin, Kevin Zippel gave that talk, I went to Bob and I said, "we have to hire him". We have no money for this position at all, but we have to figure this out 'cause we have to have him. So we did that, and in really in the same year we hired him, you know, so the meeting was like in September or something, and by the end of that year we [00:13:00] had hired him as CPSG's, uh, amphibian program officer.
[00:13:06] Bob L.: Um, and we hired Kevin Zippel, uh, who then shortly later became the first executive director of Amphibian Ark. Importantly, not only CBSG, but our partner organization stepped in. So from that CBSG meeting, members of the WAZA Council, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, went to their annual meeting, brought it to their membership, and said, "what are we gonna do?"
[00:13:29] Bob L.: And they [00:13:30] said, we're going to do something, whatever it takes. Similarly, the message was brought back to the Species Survival Commission chair and asked her, Holly Dublin to put a formal request to CBSG and to the zoo community to make a response. And that was a unique event for the conservation community in this case, SSC, to come to zoos and say, we need you as conservation partners.
[00:13:54] Bob L.: So instead of viewing zoos as entertainment facilities said "zoos have an important role in [00:14:00] conservation and we need your help for this crisis". That led to the formation of the Amphibian Ark, which was a partnership between CBSG, World Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the SSC through its newly formed Amphibians Specialist Group,
[00:14:16] Onnie B.: and I remember that after that meeting, our CPSG meeting where we met and essentially hired Kevin Zippel, immediately following that was the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, uh, annual [00:14:30] conference, and that was in New York City. And we went there on the closing night. We were on a boat, all of the participants... and, Alex Rübel from Zürich
[00:14:41] Onnie B.: and Gordon McGregor Reid from Chester Zoo were going table to table on this boat, asking for pledges for amphibian Ark, uh, you know, not amphibian Ark. We didn't call it that yet, but for the response to, for the ex situ [00:15:00] community's response. And it was amazing. So we had money to hire Kevin, which wasn't there, and to coordinate this response.
[00:15:10] Onnie B.: And it was all from people who just recognized the critical nature of this situation because it wasn't that 32% of amphibians were declining. It wasn't just that. because if that were the case, and the cause was habitat [00:15:30] loss, or habitat conversion, that's often the case, then you'd have a, a set of responses to that.
[00:15:36] Onnie B.: But a big, almost half of the species that were in decline or severely in decline were for reasons that we didn't have a way to respond to. One was climate change, you know, too big, and the other was this fungus chytridiomycosis [00:16:00] that was identified on every continent. So it was a very, uh, desperate and slightly hopeless, like almost impossible thing to wrap your head around. And in retrospect, I think that that's why some zoos weren't prepared to take on amphibians into their collections, because I thought every zoo would, would be begging to do this. I mean, [00:16:30] that's what zoos are for, and amphibians are little and they're inexpensive to hold.
[00:16:36] Onnie B.: And the amphibian experts knew how to do to do this. And some zoos, a lot of zoos did step up and, and saved threatened species, but not as many as should have and, and could have. But I do think that part of that was they were thinking, what, there's no exit strategy. We could, we [00:17:00] could be here forever with these populations.
[00:17:03] Onnie B.: So I think that... That kind of a response to a crisis that really had no known solution was pretty exceptional.
[00:17:18] María B.: Not much later, still in 2005, CPSG convened a workshop to tackle the amphibian captive breeding chapter of the ACAP.
[00:17:28] Onnie B.: That's where [00:17:30] zoos really made a commitment, because we had their only people from the ex situ community and everybody who was prepared to play a part, uh, and from nothing
[00:17:46] Onnie B.: they came up with a structure and a function for what would become Amphibian Ark.
[00:17:53] María B.: You might remember Joe saying at the beginning of this episode that even in Zoos, amphibian husbandry was not in an [00:18:00] advanced state. No one had ever dealt with a global wildlife disease like this before. There were more questions than there were answers.
[00:18:09] María B.: So what do you do when the science is still unfolding, but the species are disappearing anyway?
[00:18:17] Bob L.: You have to recognize there's a lot of uncertainties and we do what we can with the knowledge we have, we try to build that knowledge and that go from there. That's true. Not just for, you know, the amphibians, but actually most issues in [00:18:30] conservation.
[00:18:30] Bob L.: We're dealing with huge numbers of uncertainties. We're not sure what's going to work. We need to maintain options for the future by doing things like having insurance populations or multiple populations in multiple sites in the wild. For amphibians, is probably the case that before about 2005, 2006,
[00:18:47] Bob L.: most of the world ignored them, most of the zoos ignored them, there's us, you know, almost no expertise in amphibians. Zoos didn't tend to exhibit amphibians even to the public because most amphibians sort of hide under the leaf litter and you don't ever see [00:19:00] them. They don't actually make good zoo animals in that way.
[00:19:03] Bob L.: But they're in some ways easier to maintain. You can maintain a lot more amphibians in a small space than you can tigers. So for Zoos, there was almost no awareness of, you know, even how to maintain amphibians in captivity, except for a few individual cases. Few individual zoos actually were actively working with amphibians, so part of the way that I think the response occurred and we actually managed to hit upon some at least partial solutions, was the [00:19:30] dedication and expertise of a handful of individuals.
[00:19:33] Bob L.: The handful of people that, for whatever personal reasons or professional reasons, even before the amphibian crisis was identified, were passionate about amphibians and were really interested in them and working on how do you maintain them? How do you study them in the wild? How do you, you know, how well are the wild populations doing?
[00:19:51] Bob L.: And those handful of individuals were the ones who essentially were brought together, uh, by the Amphibian Ark to do things like develop training [00:20:00] programs. So now instead of, you know, a dozen or so individuals who know something about husbandry of amphibians, there are thousands and instead of just a couple institutions that have breeding programs, now around the world, there are more and more of them, institutions that have set up amphibian breeding programs based on the expertise that they've gained.
[00:20:19] Bob L.: So a lot had to be learned, but there were key people that drove it that, you know, made sure that learning was occurring and we were making progress. [00:20:30] And it's really in many ways remarkable how many species are now in fairly secure assurance populations. Given the fact that 20 years ago, the estimate was by some people, "oh, we have no idea how to maintain amphibians.
[00:20:44] Bob L.: It's hopeless." And other people said, "no, we, we actually do know something and we can learn a lot more". You just have to give it a try, and we have no choice other than to give it a try.
[00:20:53] Joe M.: A beautiful thing to see happen was to see the amphibian community kind of move beyond that and start [00:21:00] to come together.
[00:21:01] Joe M.: And so it became apparent that if you knew anything about amphibians, your expertise was needed. We have a crisis on our hands and we don't really know all the parameters or what to measure, and we, we really, we know a little bit, but we still... there are huge, huge knowledge gaps. And that really brought the amphibian community together in a way that I thought was a beautiful thing.
[00:21:29] Joe M.: And, uh, [00:21:30] yeah, the zoo people started talking to the museum people, and the field people started talking to the pathologists and the veterinarians, and that was, that was wonderful. And the ACAP brought together such a diversity of types of amphibian biologists, the zoo people were there, the field people, the theoretical people, and from all over the world.
[00:21:50] Joe M.: And instantly a huge amount of progress. There was an explosion of literature on the chytrid fungus. We didn't know anything about it, and then there were dozens and [00:22:00] dozens. Every time a paper came out, someone discovered something new about it, and it's like, wow.
[00:22:05] Bob L.: Almost because amphibians, you know, were not on the radar screen until roughly 20 years ago.
[00:22:12] Bob L.: Um, we had to build up everything from the ground up. You know, first start developing breeding programs, start developing husbandry expertise, start tracking pedigrees, doing the genetic work, you know, on and on and on. And also it was the case where amphibians, the conservation [00:22:30] community came to the ex situ, the zoo community, and said, we need to work on this together.
[00:22:34] Bob L.: And the request went the other way as well. Which meant that it's almost... it should be a model for what would happen for many other species. The fact that multiple organizations working at different parts of the conservation problems can come up with solutions that will protect species into the future, and that means it gets into what CPSG calls the One Plan Approach where you don't [00:23:00] manage a captive population in isolation.
[00:23:02] Bob L.: You manage it in collaboration with the partners working on the wild populations. So you know that what you're doing with the ex situ population is directly serving the needs of the species in the wild or the long-term needs for what's happening and not just doing things because they're fun or because they're scientifically interesting.
[00:23:20] Bob L.: Um, but you're doing it because it's necessary. And reverse of that, the people working in the field, know that they have, or should know that they have the partners back in [00:23:30] the ex situ community that they can rely upon if they need it for setting up what might be, insurance populations, or it might be research populations or support for their field work.
[00:23:40] Bob L.: It really is a model for how different organizations working in different aspects of a conservation problem, if they work together, it can actually accomplish a lot more with a lot less skepticism and hostility than they might have if everybody's trying to do their own piece of the puzzle independently from the others.
[00:23:59] Onnie B.: [00:24:00] Collaboration is the only way anything gets done. And when we did that Panama workshop, we had people there, all herpetologists, so you almost think, oh, won't this be a fun, you know, party for them. But everyone always comes together with their own, really their own analysis of the problem, but even with their own solution... and always, [00:24:30] we say, the problem, the definition of the problem has to be shared
[00:24:37] Onnie B.: by all the people in the room before solutions start to even be considered. And they were able to do that in Panama. These people came together with all their own concerns. Imagine, they were all passionate and stressed with the realization of what was happening, and they decided that they had a [00:25:00] vision that they shared, which is saving species until they can be returned to the wild.
[00:25:07] Onnie B.: And so they put everything else aside and devoted themselves to achieving that vision, which, which they're on their way to doing thanks to Amphibian Ark. So I think that, that continued collaboration is key, but organizations like Amphibian Ark make that possible because even people [00:25:30] who wanna collaborate need an umbrella.
[00:25:33] Onnie B.: They need a place to, to gather, uh, you know, maybe not physically all the time, but a place to gather that they can feel a part of and be, you know, find direction through. And Amphibian Ark... Kevin Zippel saw it before anyone else did, but Amphibian Ark is that, is that umbrella.[00:26:00]
[00:26:02] María B.: Within a few years, this global safety net for amphibians was built with a small but determined team paving the way for what is now a global amphibian ex situ community. Since then, Amphibian Ark has delivered trainings on amphibian ex situ conservation around the world, developed tools to prioritize species and the conservation actions that they need, and established partnerships that help exchange resources for the successful [00:26:30] implementation of captive breeding programs around the world.
[00:26:33] María B.: Now, if you're wondering how all of that works, then join me in the next episode.
[00:26:37] María B.: This podcast is brought to you by Amphibian Ark, hosted by me Maria Braeuner with original music by PablBolañosos of Biota Specimens, and made possible by supporters like yourself who believe amphibians are worth saving. You can help us bring this important message to more people by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts, like, rate, [00:27:00] review and share this episode with your friends and family.
[00:27:03] María B.: And if you'd like to be a part of the solution, you can support Amphibian Ark's work directly. Find the link in the show notes. All donations help secure a future for the species that are most at risk. Together we can continue rescuing amphibians in crisis. Until next time.
About the podcast
Amphibian Rescue is produced and hosted by María Braeuner, with original music by Pablo Bolaños | Biota Specimens.
Episodes are reviewed and fact-checked by the Amphibian Ark team of experts: Luis Carrillo, Devin Edmonds, Renata Ibelli Vaz, Jonathan Wilcken, Cybele Lisboa, Elizabeth Townsend, María José Chang, and Beatriz Velásquez.
Trailer video footage by © Jaime Culebras; additional clips via © Canva.com by Leo Lee, Black Box, Atelopus | Getty Images, Daniel Bahrmann | Pixabay.
Cover image © Jaime Culebras
The podcast is made possible thanks to the continued support of Amphibian Ark donors and partners around the world.
Together, we can continue rescuing amphibians in crisis.
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