Volunteers Work To Eradicate Invasive Amphibians To Protect Local Species

TaiwanPlus News

Teams of volunteers are trying to protect Taiwan's native amphibians by rooting out invasive competitors like the cane toad and the spot-legged tree frog. Invasive species like these can wreak havoc on native ecosystems.

Transcript

00:00It's a miserable wet night in the mountains of Taichung, but a team of volunteers equipped

00:07with rain gear, headlamps and nets is walking the soggy hillside trails with purpose.

00:14It doesn't take long for them to find their targets, cane toads.

00:18These plump frog-like creatures, native to Latin America, were brought into Taiwan through

00:23the pet trade.

00:24Now as in other places, they've established themselves in the wild as a stubborn nuisance.

00:30They eat valuable insects, pose a risk to dogs and cats with their poison glands, and

00:35both out-compete and prey on Taiwan's native amphibians.

00:41At first, these strange new creatures were a mystery to people like team leader Zheng

00:46Li Mian, who first came across them in a vegetable plot in 2021.

00:51But it was soon clear these were unlike anything from her home in central Taiwan.

01:14She's since been a part of a corps of volunteers trying to find a solution to the pests.

01:20In the hometown of Cao Chun alone, they've caught over 30,000 cane toads with nets and

01:25bags like these.

01:26The toads are sent on to the Agriculture Ministry's Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute for

01:32cataloging.

01:33The toads are then placed into a cold environment where they enter a hibernation state, and

01:38are then frozen, never to wake again.

01:41Researchers say this is a humane way to deal with a pressing ecological problem.

01:46The institute is also working on traps that can supplement the labor-intensive process

01:51of catching toads with nets.

01:53No country where cane toads have been introduced and become a problem has managed to eradicate

01:58them.

01:59But researchers like Lin Chun-Fu say making Taiwan the first is a worthy goal.

02:20Cane toads aren't the only invasive amphibian Taiwan is struggling to contain.

02:25Since 2006, the spot-legged tree frog, native to China and Southeast Asia, has been rapidly

02:31out-competing local frog species and pushing them from their habitats.

02:36Since 2011, Yang Yiru, associate professor at National Donghua University, has helped

02:41lead the pushback against them.

02:45These invasive frogs produce enormous numbers of eggs, in clumps of up to 1,000 at a time,

02:51and they can reproduce five times a year.

02:54This is why Professor Yang's approach relies on stopping their growth from the tadpole

02:58stage.

03:04Camellia seed powder kills them directly, without harming the environment.

03:08And in hard-to-reach breeding grounds, like in among thickets, a solution with 16 percent

03:13citric acid will do the trick, too.

03:16Another important part of her approach is bringing the whole family into the process

03:20of catching mature frogs, so that even the youngest children learn about the importance

03:25of protecting Taiwan's ecology, as she did during her childhood.

03:29When I was a kid, there were frogs everywhere in the countryside.

03:32But as I said, 20 or 30 years ago, I discovered that the population of frogs in Taiwan was

03:36declining.

03:37So we started to protect them.

03:38And I think it's too late to do it alone.

03:39If everyone can protect the frogs near their homes, then all the frogs in Taiwan can be

03:40protected.

03:41Let's take a look.

03:43Though the speed at which the frogs breed makes catching them all or reversing their

03:55damage difficult, teams like this hope to at least make a dent, preventing a complete

04:01takeover of Taiwan's ecosystems and leaving a space in them for the local species that

04:07have long called the island home.

04:11I'm Luffy Lee and John Ventreeste for Taiwan Plus.

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