(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Brookfield Zoo this week shipped more than 8,000 tadpoles to Puerto Rico.
Not just any tadpoles. The shipment is part of a decades-long project to increase the population of the endangered Puerto Rican Crested Toad.
The Crested Toad is the only native toad species on the island. Andy Snider, curator of herpetology and aquatics with the Chicago Zoological Society, said Crested Toads were once thought to be extinct.
“They hadn’t been seen in a number of years,” he tells WBBM Newsradio. “Then they found a small population.”
The species primarily faces threats from rising sea levels, habitat alteration, fragmentation, and the introduction of invasive species in the area.
The toad is only found in Puerto Rico’s central mountain region, an area that’s very dry. They spend most of their time in limestone crevices. The toads only mate when there’s heavy rain, like in a hurricane.
To get the toads to mate in Illinois, Snider said, “We rain on them. So, we set up these rain chambers.”
The zoological society sent four boxes — like shipping tropical fish — containing a total of 8,204 tadpoles. They count every one.
The tadpoles from Brookfield Zoo are being released in Río Encantado, Ciales.
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