| Travel Photography > Isthmus > El Valle de Anton
This is the strategy all over the world. It is called 'The Amphibian Ark', a network of zoos and amphibian conservation organizations that understand the only way to keep these species from extinction is to extract them from their environment and to hold them, with the hope of one day reestablishing their populations in the wild.
In El Valle, local biologists collected the last of the known individuals and brought them to a newly established center in El Valle known as the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project. Here, dedicated biologists house what may be the last individuals of dozens of frog species. The total number of individuals for each species differs. Fifty. A hundred. Two hundred. All over the world, small institutions struggle to keep tiny populations alive. Many of these species, like the golden frog itself, were once ever-present in their habitat.
This is desperation, but it is a hint of what is to come for the world that our grandchildren will live in. It all starts with the small stones, Lola.
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Cricket frog male calling from a swampy perch.
