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’Exiled’ Tanzanian toads set to return home soon
2006-03-27 09:09:52
By Ludger Kasumuni, writing for JET
The Kihansi spray toads that were taken to the US three years ago will be brought back home following remarkable multiplication in US zoos.
Speaking at the weekend, the National Project Co-ordinator for Lower Kihansi Environmental Management Project (LKEM), Dr Wilfred Sarunday, said the toads had multiplied by 200 per cent in the well-managed American zoos.
Seventy-two toads were transferred to US zoos in 2002 following fears that they were on their way to extinction.
The zoos are managed by world renowned scientists specialising in genetic preservation.
The LKEM report shows that they had tripled to 216 by the end of last year, and indication that the programme is going on well.
’Ex-situ conservation, a programme of conserving animal species outside their natural habitat, is progressing well with the assistance of the US captive breeding institutions – Bronx 200 of New York and Toledo 200 – of Ohio.
The population had grown by over 200 per cent last year,’ Dr Sarunday said.
’The LKEM is working with the Wildlife Conservation Society to see how the Bronx 200 and the US captive breeding institutions could provide requisite assistance in setting up a domestic captive breeding facility in Kihansi,’ he added.
Dr Sarunday said they were also implementing a programme for repatriation of the toads to Tanzania from the US to reduce the cost of captive husbandry in the US.
He said the role of the US captive breeding institutions was maintaining the ecology for captive breeding and nutritional studies of the toads and developing living cell lines at Cres San Diego zoo.
The government initiated LKEM in 2002 with the financial assistance from the World Bank.
On why the government has been spending huge sums of money on preserving the spray toads, while millions of people are suffering from poverty and hunger, Dr Sarunday defended the project saying the preservation of the ecosystems of rare species was necessary for future survival of fauna and flora.
’While many species of flora and fauna may appear to have no consumptive value today for humanity, the same species may prove to be extremely useful in future with the growth of biotechnology, especially in the pharmaceutical industries,’ he said.
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