All Frog & Toad Species Face Extinction - 1/2 Aus. Species Gone In 6 Mos.

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THANKS to our living habits, we may soon live in a world devoid of frogs and their amphibious friends. Fifty international amphibian experts have predicted a mass extinction of the world's frogs, toads and salamanders due largely to rising pollution levels, climatic change and a killer fungal disease - with its effect being felt in Sydney.
In a last-ditch effort to save thousands of amphibious species, the experts have sounded an SOS call for a global mission to avert the imminent ecological disaster.

Conservation International herpetologist Claude Gascon said for the first time in modern history the planet is facing the extinction of an entire class of organisms. "This is not the extinction of just a panda or a rhino, it is a whole class of organisms," Mr Gascon said.

In Australia, where only 250 species remain, more than 40 per cent are classified as threatened. Many of those have not been seen in 30 years. Almost a third of the 5743 known amphibian species worldwide are threatened already by a combination of habitat loss, climate change, pollution, pesticides and ultraviolet radiation.

But it is the latest threat that is being viewed as the final straw in frogs' fate - chytridiomycosis, a skin-damaging fungal disease predicted to wipe out about half the species within six months.

Ed. - Emphasis added.

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http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20180766-2,00.html