New Agreement Will Speed Federal Protection for Boreal Toads

The Center for Biological Diversity reached a settlement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service late Monday giving the agency four years to consider Endangered Species Act protection for boreal toads in the southern Rocky Mountains, Utah, southern Idaho and northeastern Nevada. This unique population of toads is in steep decline due to a deadly fungal disease and habitat destruction.  “This agreement will move these boreal toads toward the protection they desperately need to avoid extinction,” said Center attorney and biologist Collette Adkins Giese. “In the southern Rockies boreal toads have been waiting nearly two decades for Endangered Species Act protection — protection that’s needed to address the drastic decline of these animals and the forces destroying their habitat.” Once common, boreal toads now exist in less than 1 percent of their historic breeding areas in the southern Rockies, where a globally occurring amphibian disease known as chytrid fungus has wiped out most remaining populations. The only remaining large population in the southern Rockies is in Colorado. Boreal toads have been nearly extirpated in southern Wyoming and were likely extirpated in New Mexico prior to a recent reintroduction effort...more