Are frogs on their last legs? Not if we and all the frog fans out there can help it. The Museum's Wildlife Garden joins the awareness action this weekend as the venue for the UK's Save the Frogs Day, hosted by the Froglife charity.
'Help, I can't find my pond...' Save the Frogs Day is on Saturday 27 April, come along to our event in the Wildlife Garden or join in where you are. Image: Common frog, Rana temporaria, courtesy Silviu Petrovan.
As well as the fun stuff like pond-dipping and decorating your own tropical frog models to take home, there will be lots to learn about ambiphians and their conservation at our event here on Saturday, 27 April.
The Museum's large pond in its Wildlife Garden: Home to amphibians like the common frog, toad, and common newt, and many more aquatic animals. Enjoy some pond-dipping at our Save the Frogs Day event on Saturday.
If you can't make it to the Museum for Save the Frogs Day, here are some quick tips of how to help conservation wherever you are:
- Listen to and share comedian John Shuttleworth’s Save the frog song
- Tweet your froggy pics and support to #Savethefrogs
- Don’t move frogs or frogspawn - particularly important at the moment when frogs are arriving in local ponds
- Don’t release pet amphibians (or any other animals) into the wild
- Report any dead or ill amphibians in your garden to Froglife
- Add Water and dig a wildlife pond in your own garden
- Make your gardening organic and chemical-free
- Support amphibian conservation projects
With more than 5,800 species currently identified, frogs and toads are the most familiar and most abundant amphibians on the planet. But the sad fact is that UK populations of frogs are under threat from disease and habitat loss. They make up 32% of the already large fraction (one-third) of amphibian species that are threatened with extinction.
The ranavirus disease and destruction of local ponds are among the causes for our frogs' decline. These factors can wipe out a local population in a short time (ranavirus is a disease that Froglife has been aware of since the 1980s and there is an ongoing research project with the Institute of Zoology to help stop the spread of the disease.)
If you want to immerse yourselves more in the amazing world of frogs and toads, the Museum's guide to Frogs and Toads by Chris Mattison is really comprehensive and beautifully illustrated (above and right).
Find out lots more about frog conservation on the Froglife website
What's the difference between frogs and toads
Learn about freshwater pond habitats
Identify your frog or amphibian find on our ID forum