The Golden Toad - the first extinction from Global Warming?

The issue of global warming has gained a great deal of headway in the 2000s, but it is an issue that scientists have been aware of since the 1980s. In that light, the dangers that global warming pose to various species of animals is clear. People are now aware that climate change can have dire consequences on habitats and resources across the globe. As a result of global warming, dozens of species have gone extinct. Unfortunately, mountain dwelling frogs are the most susceptible species to extinction because of climate change. As the number of species affected by global warming increase, the question is raised, "what was the first species to become extinct as a result of global warming?" There is a great deal of speculation and debate around the answer to that question, but for many, the answer is the Golden Toad.

The Golden Toad is a unique toad species native to the Costa Rican forest of Monteverde. While most toads have bland coloring and do not have visual gender identifiers, the Golden Toad is different. Males of the species were characterized by bright skin of a golden/nearly orange color and females could be a various bright colors spotted with black and scarlet. The Golden Toad's unique coloring was coupled with unique mating habits. Once a year in April, golden toads would partake in a pound maintain ritual that would last for days. At its peak in 1987, 1,500 of these brilliantly colored toads participated in the maintaining ritual as males, which outnumbered females by as many as 8 to 1, tried to find a female to fertilize eggs. It was in these shallow ponds that the Golden Toad's eggs would become tadpoles and await maturity. In the years following 1987, the number of Golden Toad sightings plummeted; by 1988 only one male was seen and from 1989 onward the Golden Toad has never been seen again. In 2004, the Golden Toad was official placed on the extinct species list, leaving many pondering about the seemingly unfounded vanishing of the species.

Tim Flannery, a leading global warming activist believes that the cause was clear; global warming. According to the once named, Australian Man of the Year, "The golden toad was the first documented victim of global warming. We had killed it with our profligate use of coal-fired electricity and our oversize cars just as surely as if we had flattened its forest with bulldozers." The area of Monteverde experienced a dramatic shift in weather during the late 1980s due to El Nino. While El Nino is a result of changes in pressure in the Pacific and Atlantic atmospheres, it is believe that the activity of El Nino events has dramatically increased with rising sea temperatures that are a result of global warming. The end result was record low rain fall in the forests of Monteverde and it is from this dramatic temperature shift that Flannery's theory is constructed. The mating ponds used by the toads were very shallow and were known to dry out, even during normal temperature influxes. As ponds dried out, the young developing Golden Toads would also perish. While normal temperature changes were something that the Golden Toad was used to dealing with, the dramatic increase in temperature from global warming was too much for the toad to survive. Another theory blames the fall of the Golden Toad on a common amphibious disease called Chytridiomycosis. This disease, which toads become more susceptible too in higher temperatures, is a fungal skin disease that leads to respiratory failure. It is unproven whether or not the Golden Toad actual suffered from this disease, but scientists are sure if they did, the spread of the disease would have been assisted greatly by higher temperatures. The fact that the habitat and health of the Golden Toad was highly susceptible to climate change made the animals demise eminent in the face of global warming.

In recent years, some scientists have begun to question global warming's role in the extinction of the Golden Toad. Though higher temperatures were undoubtedly the cause of the Golden Toad dying out, some attribute the shifts in temperature to normal fluctuations. According to a recent sample taken from trees in the Monteverde forest, scientists have discovered that patterns in the area's water cycle place the 1988-1989 climate in the normal range for the area. Though the issue is still under a great deal of debate, the result remains unchanged; the Golden Toad is extinct. Regardless of whether or not global warming was actually the culprit in this particular case is moot, seeing as it is an agreed upon scientific fact that hundreds of other species are currently in danger of extinction from the effects of global warming. Species in delicate ecosystems are constantly put in danger by global warming and until the issue is stabilized, many other animals will share in the same fate of the Golden Toad.