Kihansi spray toads back to their natural environment
What you need to know:
The reintroduction of the toads started slowly in 2012 after scientists managed to make them coexist with chytrid fungus, which caused massive deaths of the rare species in the early 2000s.
Morogoro. Scientists have successfully reintroduced 9,873 Kihansi Spray Toads (KST) in their natural environment at Kihansi Falls in Morogoro region.
The reintroduction of the toads started slowly in 2012 after scientists managed to make them coexist with chytrid fungus, which caused massive deaths of the rare species in the early 2000s.
The toads, which are only found in Tanzania, reproduced from 500 that were taken to the US where they bred in captivity at both Bronx Zoo and Toledo Zoo.
The move was to save them from extinction.
“Today we are returning the toads to their natural environment. Since we started bringing them back to their natural habitat in 2012, we’ve managed reintroduce over 9873 toads,” an Ecologist/Laboratory Scientist at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), Dr Charles Msuya said.
He said that the KST has a long history and the reintroduction work as well as the research of their lives and enemies is not easy, adding that all stakeholders should dedicate their time in ensuring that the toads stay safe.
“We discovered these toads in early 1990s, these toads are unique and unlike other toads’ reproduction, which depends on laying eggs, the KST fertilisation is internal. Eggs and developing tadpoles are retained in the female’s body until they are hatched,” he said.
Dr Msuya disclosed that the toads were facing extinction following the construction of Lower Kihansi Electric Dam, which adversely affected their habitat.
Dr Msuya pointed further that as the KST were flown to the US, environmentalists discussed with the Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (Tanesco) about fate of the toads.
He said the country’s power utility agreed to release water from the dam to help restore the conditions at the Kihansi Gorge.
“The first batch of the toads was returned to the country in 2011 and when we tried to reintroduce them, the results were not so good. We discovered that the situation was not yet good for the toads. We thus improved the infrastructures to make the environment more favourable,” he said.
An assistant lecturer from UDSM, Mr Nassoro Mohammed, who took the toads to Kihansi from the university labs said: “The toads have arrived safely, but three out of 1,000 have died on the way, we are concerned and we need to find out why this has happened.”
