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Biologists urge FWS to ban importation of Asian salamanders
Posted On Aug 02 2015
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“This is the hot bed in the world for diversity of amphibians, and if that fungus gets here, it’s going to be devastating”.
Biologists from San Francisco State University and some other institutions have urged the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to put a ban on importation of salamanders from Asia to forestall outbreak of a fungal disease. The step is necessary for stopping the spread of fungus and for saving US salamanders. “Bsal is an acute infection that just turns them into little masses of slime in three to four days”. Those salamanders are bringing a deadly fungus with them. Koo is also an associate director at AmphibiaWeb. This trade could be very problematic to North America according to the report was published in Science.
Scientists have warned that there is a need to take urgent action as otherwise a deadly salamander fungus will wipe off the native North American salamander population. By studying habitats on the continent along with salamander Bsal is a chytrid fungus that is very close relatives with Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), another amphibian-killer that is threatening frog populations across the globe. Pinpointed hotspots are in the southeastern United States, particularly the southern extent of the Appalachian Mountain range and its southern neighboring region; the Pacific Northwest and the Sierra Nevada; and the central highlands of Mexico. Los Angeles was found to be the largest port of entry, with 419,890 over this period, and of that number, 418,692 were considered Bsal threats.
The researchers affirmed, “We’ve made specific predictions, on the ground, of where North American species are most vulnerable to Bsal”. They plough fertile soil, prey on harmful insects and are the beacon after which we can signal the health of their environment, which makes detecting pollution much more easily. There is a ray of hope, he added.
Co-author Vance Vredenburg, who has studied the chytrid or Bd fungus for more than a decade, noted that more than 200 species of amphibians have gone extinct or are near to extinction as a result of infection, making it the most devastating infectious wildlife disease ever recorded. This could work, but the Lacey Act, which is what gives the agency power to forbid certain species importation, has no clause for emergency listings. “What’s encouraging about this time, with Bsal, is that the scientific community figured it out really quickly, and we can learn a lesson from the past”. If something isn’t done, the fungus could decimate salamander populations, and restricting salamander trade is the only way to effectively do this. Unfortunately, these species are very vulnerable to Bsal.
