More chytrid fungus

hey! remember the last post I made? in part of the post, I was talking about chytrid fungus.Well today, I found an article talking about different techniques to " prevent the effects of the disease and curb potential future extinctions."

 the article said that the researchers warn it is still too soon to recommend the treatments, as the fungus may develop a resistance to them.

            one technique from the article was keeping infected tadpoles in a place that is over 68.9 degrees
          fahrenheit, which is hotter than they are used to. Then when they are grown up, they are set free.
          of course, this doesn't always work.
          scientists have also tried bathing frogs in antifungal itraconazole, which slows down the infection of  chytrid fungus.

 article website: http://www.livescience.com/15315-frog-fungus-treatment.html

The Pond is Back!

Today I am going to write about a pretty simple article. It is called " How Eating Frog Legs is Causing Frog Extinction."
frogs are a very popular food all over the world. Many restaurants sell them, and they areconsidered a delicacy in some places.

According to a new report, an average of 2,280 metric tons of frog legs are imported into this country each year—that's the equivalent of somewhere between 450 million and 1.1 billion frogs.

If that's just for the United States, imagine how many frogs are sold worldwide. To put it shortly - to many!
According to the article, the two main reasons that this is a problem are:
. Too many frogs are being taken out of the wild.
&
. live frogs spreading chytrid fungus

A basic description of chytrid fungus:  a fungus that clogs up the skin of frogs and kills them. frogs that have chytrid fungus can pass it on to other frogs. that's why transporting live frogs is a problem.

savethefrogs.com  has a section on their website about eating frog legs. They also have a petition you can participate in against restaurants serving frog legs.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked for public comments on a proposal to ban the import of live frogs under the Lacey Act, which regulates the import or transport of wildlife species that are either dangerous to humans or the environment. The public comment period ended in December; there is no word yet on if the proposal will become law. 

the article web address: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=how-eating-frog-legs-is-causing-fro-2011-07-27