Salamander Import May Be Banned In US Because Of Deadly Fungus Concerns

Therefore, scientists have been asking to levy a ban on importing salamanders as pets.

“There is a lot at stake here if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t stop imports now to prevent the introduction of this devastating pathogen to North America”, added co-author Michelle Koo.

Since it was first recognized in 2013, the fungus has caused a 96 percent fatality rate among the European salamander species that it infected. It’s also been shown to be deadly to American salamander species exposed to the fungus in the lab, the researchers cautioned.

Earlier this spring, scientists with the Center for Biological Diversity started an online petition pressuring federal officials to take steps to prevent the fungus from infecting amphibians in the United States.

From 2010 to 2014, around three-quarters of a million salamanders were imported and a majority of them have been imported from Asia where the fungus is thought to have originated.

Since recent year, salamanders have become popular pets, so they are frequently traded across borders.

Such a ban has the support of many scientists, but the U.S. government has been slow to act, the researchers said.

Salamanders are important predators of insects, and are also an important part of the food chain. He explained that in only three or four days it can turn the animals in tiny masses of slime.

However, Vredenburg still believes there’s much that can be done in order to prevent this whole catastrophe. When veterinarian An Martel of the Ghent University from Belgium ran DNA tests, they pointed out that it was not B.d. and it was proved to be an entirely new species, which they described as B.sal. and eventually attributed to Asian salamanders, that are resistant to its effects. They are: the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains, the Pacific Northwest and the Sierra Nevada, and the highlands of Central Mexico.

More than 200 species of amphibians have become extinct or are near extinction because of a related fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, making it the most devastating kind of infectious wildlife disease ever recorded, Vredenburg says. New research suggests, should the fungus makes its way stateside, two American salamanders – the West Coast’s rough-skinned newt and Eastern newt of the East Coast – would be especially vulnerable to infection.

“I have seen the effects of Bd on frogs, to the point where I’ve seen tens of thousands of animals die in the wild in pristine areas, here in California, right in front of my eyes”, he says.

The San Diego Zoo has more about salamanders.

“California salamander populations are already way down because of the drought”, Wake said.