For Immediate Release
September 28, 2005

Contact Information

Denver, Colorado – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that it will not protect Colorado’s and Wyoming’s boreal toads under the Endangered Species Act, and, even worse, they will remove the toad from the list of Candidates awaiting protection under the Act.

"This removal of protections is a devastating blow to good science and to the public interest," said Jeremy Nichols, Conservation Director for Biodiversity Conservation Alliance.

The boreal toad has experienced dramatic declines throughout the Southern Rocky Mountains for decades, and only one population in Chaffee County, Colorado, is still considered to be viable by the Service. The toad has already disappeared from all of New Mexico and many of the high elevation ponds that it once called home.

“The Service has betrayed Colorado’s wildlife by bowing to political pressure and removing protections from one of the most endangered animals in the state,” said Erin Robertson, Staff Biologist for Center for Native Ecosystems.

The Service’s press release from today admits that the toads in the Southern Rockies are geographically distinct. Contrary to their claim today, the Service’s own boreal toad species assessment from 2004 states that not only is the Southern Rocky Mountains population significant, it should be considered a separate species:

"However, recent DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis may warrant a taxonomic change to this complex. Goebel (1996) analyzed mitochondrial and nuclear DNA of B. boreas populations from the southeastern portion of the range (Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado) and found that the S[outhern] R[ocky] M[ountains] population may be distinct enough to warrant recognition as a separate species. Prior to Goebel ’s work, noted morphological, biochemical, and vocal differences already existed between western toads of the Pacific Northwest and the southern Rocky Mountains (Burger and Bragg 1947, Hubbard 1972)." (p. 4)

This assessment is still available on the agency’s website at http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/candforms_pdf/r6/D026_V01.pdf.

In other words, the best scientific information available shows that the toads in the Southern Rocky Mountains which are so at risk of extinction do not exist anywhere else.

Anna Goebel, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University who has extensively studied the genetics of the Southern Rocky Mountains toads, recently wrote a book chapter titled “Conservation Systematics, The Bufo boreas Species Group” (in press) which determines that the toads in the Southern Rocky Mountains actually comprise multiple unique species. Goebel concludes her paper, "Throughout the decade, and now, I feel sadness for lost lineages (B. boreas in Colorado may be lost in the next few years)” (p. 221).

"The public interest and the law both require that we make these decisions based on thorough, credible scientific research," noted Nichols. "Instead, politicians, developers, and other opponents to conservation are hijacking the science."

“Extinction is forever. Decisions to remove protections from endangered species should not be made lightly, and should be based on sound science,” said Robertson. “Everyone involved knows that the boreal toad is in crisis.”

Chytrid fungus, an introduced disease, has caused rapid population boreal toad population declines throughout the Southern Rocky Mountains. Boreal toads in Colorado and Wyoming do not reproduce until they are six years old, and very few are surviving that long now.

For more information about the boreal toad, visit http://www.nativeecosystems.org/borealtoad/ or http://wildlife.state.co.us/aquatic/boreal/index.asp.

Erin Robertson, Staff Biologist, Center for Native Ecosystems, (303)546-0214
Jeremy Nichols, Conservation Director, Biodiversity Cons. Alliance, (303) 454-3370