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Those who are privileged enough to have seen them will never forget.
Only a few days a year, the elfin cloud forests of Costa Rica were alive with thousands of golden toads, each as long as a child’s thumb. They emerged from the undergrowth to mate in rain-swollen pools.
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The mysterious woodland is covered in cloud and the trees are “dimmed and wind-sculpted, heavily laden with mosses” according to J Alan Pounds, an ecologist at the Monteverde Cloud Forest PreserveCosta Rica
“The soils are very dark, so the golden toads would standout like animal figurines.” It was quite a spectacle.
In 1990, they vanished.
The first species to be discovered was the golden toad. Climate changeKey driver of extinction has been identified.
Its fate could only be the beginning.
Researchers have warned for years that the world is facing a climate crisis and a biodiversity crisis. They are becoming more connected.
Climate change “pulling on the trigger”
Even if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeNearly 10 percent of all species are at risk of extinction, according to the report.
The Monteverde highland forest was the only place where the golden toad could be found. The species was decimated when trouble struck.
Pounds said that “it was pretty clear about 99 per cent of the population declined in a single year,” his research into disappearance of golden toads was cited by the February report by IPCC on climate impacts.
When Pounds arrived in Costa Rica to study amphibians in the 1980s, climate change was not on the radar.
But global warming was already taking its toll.
Researchers compared data on weather patterns and temperature with those of local species after the disappearances of the Monteverde Harlequin Frog, the golden toad and other species.
They discovered not only the signatures of El Nino weather phenomena, but also trends related to climate changes.
The die-offs occurred in unusually warm and dry conditions.
Pounds and his coworkers linked the declines in chytridiomycosis infections, but concluded that the disease was only the “bullet” — climate change was the trigger.
Pounds said to AFP, “We hypothesized climate change and the resultant extreme events were somehow loading up the dice for such kinds of outbreaks.”
It wasn’t an isolated incident.
According to the IPCC the expansion of the Chytrid fungus worldwide and local climate changes “is implicated with the extinction a wide range tropical amphibians.”
Since then, other disappearances have revealed the global warming fingerprints.
The Bramble Cay Melomys, a small rodent that lives on a low-lying island of the Torres Strait was last seen in 2009.
It is the only mammal that is endemic to Great Barrier Reef. Its populations were devastated by sea-level rise and increased storm surges, as well as tropical cyclones, all of which are made worse by climate change.
The amount of vegetation that provided it with food has dropped from 11 plant species in 1998, to just two in 2014. It was recently declared extinct.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, climate change is a direct threat for 11,475 species. 5,775 species are at risk of extinction.
“It is absolutely terrifying”
The main reason climate change is becoming a threat to many species is because of its increasing visibility, according to Wendy Foden (head of the IUCN climate change specialist group).
There is also an increasing understanding of the many effects.
Other than extreme weather, warming can also cause species change behaviour and move.
Other human threats include poaching, deforestation, pollution, and overfishing.
UN biodiversity experts reported in 2019 that one million species could disappear within the next decade, raising concerns about a sixth era.
Foden stated, “It is absolutely terrifying,” and added that warnings of a catastrophic biodiversity loss were often ignored.
“We need a #MeToo movement to save species and a global wake-up on what we are doing.”
Currently, nearly 200 countries are involved in global biodiversity talks to protect nature. This includes a key milestone of 30% of the Earth’s surface being protected by 2030.
Foden stated that the threat of climate changes means that traditional conservation will not be sufficient.
Foden stated that “that can’t happen anymore” even in remote wildernesses, because climate change will impact it.
In some cases, it may be necessary to choose which species to preserve.
Foden wrote about the endangered African penguin in South Africa for the IPCC report on climate impact.
The adults are now forced to nest in the open because humans have taken their guano nesting locations. They must swim further to find fish due to overfishing and climate changes. Heat stress can cause the death of chicks from nests that are exposed to heat.
“We are down to the last 7 000 breeding pairs. Foden stated that at this point, every penguin counts.
“More like an air forest than a forest of clouds”
Even the clouds have changed in Monteverde
Although rainfall has been increasing over the past 50 year, Pounds stated that it has become more unpredictable.
The forest averaged 25 dry days per year in the 1970’s — it’s been more like 115 in the past decade.
The mist that used be there to keep the forest dry during the dry season is now around 70%.
Pounds stated that tourists sometimes stop Pounds to ask for directions to the Cloud Forest.
He said, “And I say: You’re in It,'”
“It often feels more a dust forest rather than a cloud forest.”
Researchers also noticed a decline in the number of snakes, lizards, and frogs as well changes in bird populations. Some have moved uphill to cooler regions, while others have disappeared entirely from the area.
The golden toad was found by a team of Monteverde Conservation League volunteers, supported by Re:wild. They launched an expedition to find it in its historic habitat in Children’s Eternal Rainforest last year, following tantalising rumours.
But it was all in vain.
Pounds and his associates continue to watch out for the golden toad in the rainy season.
He said, “We haven’t completely given up.”
“But it looks less likely they’ll reappear with each passing year.”
