Pregnancy testing destroys frog species worldwide

Today's St. Louis Newspaper's Explore section has a front page story by Jeffrey Bonner tells how over 50 percent of the known species of frogs are in danger of going extinct in our lifetime and the race to try and save some of these species before they are gone forever. Where do we humans come as the catalyst into this tragic story - in the 1940's and 1950's the African clawed frog were harvested throughout Africa and sent around the world to be used for early pregnancy testing. What was not known at the time was that the African clawed frog carried the lethal fungus that is now descimating other frog species. The African clawed frog had developed a natural immunity to the disease - probably through that much maligned process known as evolution. Worse yet, the fungal disease is so slow moving that it probably never would have made it out of Africa had we not intervened. Let's hope that the Frog Project that is going on at the St. Louis Zoo and other zoos around the nation will be successful in saving at least some of these beautiful creatures.

This article is very informative and gives some steps of positive action that is being taken and I urge everyone to go to STLtoday