E03 – What is conservation breeding?

In this episode, Bob helps us understand how conservation breeding works as a response to the amphibian extinction crisis, especially when chytrid fungus makes protecting wild populations impossible and “insurance populations" are needed to prevent species loss.

Drawing on Bob’s experience, the episode traces early work on the Puerto Rican toad (sapo concho), then goes on to unpack population management and conservation breeding.

Then, together with Amphibian Ark’s Executive Director, Jonathan Wilcken, we outline the way Amphibian Ark works today and how it is going from a reactive crisis-response organization to a more proactive organization that continues rescuing amphibians in crisis around the world.

Support Amphibian Ark: https://www.amphibianark.org/support-us/

About our guests:

Dr. Bob Lacy is a conservation scientist with the Chicago Zoological Society and served as chair of the IUCN Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG, today CPSG) from 2003-2011. He is still Science Advisor and an active member of CPSG.

After 20+ years working within the ex situ community, including as Director of Auckland Zoo, Executive Director of the Australasian Zoo and Aquarium Association and Chair of Species360, Jonathan Wilcken has been the Executive Director of Amphibian Ark since 2023.

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.

Cover image and intro and outro video footage by © 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.

💚 Support Amphibian Ark’s work: www.AmphibianArk.org/support-us/

E02 - Building Amphibian Ark: a crisis-response organization for threatened amphibians

In Episode 2 of Amphibian Rescue, we trace the rapid shift from alarm to action that led to Amphibian Ark. After the 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 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.

Support Amphibian Ark: https://www.amphibianark.org/support-us/

Find the transcript and links to the documents referenced in this episode here: https://www.amphibianark.org/news/article/episode-02-founding-the-amphibian-ark-with-dr-onnie-byers-dr-bob-lacy/

About our guests:

Dr. Onnie Byers was Executive Director of the CBSG/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 Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG) from 2003-2011. He is still Science Advisor and an active member of CPSG.

About the podcast

Amphibian Rescue is produced and hosted by María Braeuner, with original music by Pablo Bolaños | Biota Specimens: https://biota-specimens.com/

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.

Cover image and intro and outro video footage by © 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.

💚 Support Amphibian Ark’s work: www.AmphibianArk.org/support-us/

E01: Where have all the frogs gone?

In Episode 1 of Amphibian Rescue, we go back to the beginning. Herpetologist Dr. Joe Mendelson takes us through the earliest signs of global amphibian declines and the timeline of how scientists went from dismissing the idea to finally accepting that there was a crisis to respond to.

Joe recounts how scientists worldwide initially dismissed disappearances as bad years until patterns converged at the 1989 World Congress of Herpetology and later evidence pointed to disease. The episode follows the slow recognition of chytridiomycosis, and Karen Lips’ documentation of a site’s chytrid arrival and subsequent crash. All of which kickstarted a global movement to respond to this crisis that is, unfortunately, not over yet.

Support Amphibian Ark: https://www.amphibianark.org/support-us/

Find the transcript and links to the documents referenced in this episode here: https://www.amphibianark.org/news/article/episode-01-the-forgotten-amphibian-crisis-with-dr-joe-mendelson/

About our guest:

Dr. Joe Mendelson III is Director of Research at Zoo Atlanta and adjunct professor at Georgia Tech University. He has dedicated his career to taxonomy and herpetology, and was among the first responders to the amphibian decline crisis. He is also a guitarist in the Atlanta-based science punk-rock band Leucine Zipper and the Zinc Fingers.

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.

Cover image and intro and outro video footage by © 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.

💚 Support Amphibian Ark’s work: www.AmphibianArk.org/support-us/

Around the world, amphibians are disappearing. But when conservation in the wild isn’t enough, what options do we have?

Amphibian Rescue is the official podcast of Amphibian Ark, sharing the stories of how a global amphibian crisis reshaped conservation—and how science, collaboration, and ex situ programs are already giving amphibian species a second chance at a future back in the wild.

Launching with a three-part historical series, the podcast traces how scientists uncovered a global amphibian pandemic, how the conservation community responded, and why assurance colonies became essential to preventing extinction.

Future monthly episodes spotlight conservation leaders around the world who are working to breed, safeguard, and ultimately reintroduce amphibians back into the wild.

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Amphibian Rescue is hosted and produced by María Braeuner.

With original music by Pablo Bolaños | Biota Specimens.

Reviewed and fact-checked by the Amphibian Ark team: Luis Carrillo, Devin Edmonds, Renata Ibelli Vaz, Jonathan Wilcken, Cybele Lisboa, Elizabeth Townsend, María José Chang, Beatriz Velásquez

Trailer video footage by © Jaime Culebras; additional clips via © Canva.com by Leo Lee, Black Box, Atelopus | Getty Images, Daniel Bahrmann | Pixabay.

🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

🌍 Learn more: www.AmphibianArk.org

💚 Support Amphibian Ark’s work: www.AmphibianArk.org/support-us/

Together, we can continue rescuing amphibians in crisis.

💚 Support Amphibian Ark’s work: www.AmphibianArk.org/support-us/