May 22nd is the International Day of Biodiversity – and for Citizen Conservation the occasion to present the balance of our contribution to its preservation. And the results are impressive!

The goals CC sets for its conservation breeding programs are not arbitrary, but have been determined using science-based population management tools. The goal is to establish populations in which the genetic diversity of the source animals is largely maintained over a 40-year period. To achieve this, we need a certain number of holdings and animals per species.

Pátzcuaro’s cross-toothed newt, Majorca’s midwife toad and Chinese fire-bellied toad are also reproducing very successfully among CC participants. Lemur tree frog and bone-headed toad, on the other hand, are causing more trouble than originally thought. But even with these species, the knot will hopefully be broken.

For the fire salamanders, poison dart frogs, Titicaca giant frogs, Anderson’s cross-toothed newts, and Madagascar spadefoot, it is too early to make any statements, as these programs are just beginning.

When Citizen Conservation was launched in 2018, the project sponsors Frogs & Friends, VdZ and DGHT decided to run a five-year pilot phase to test whether our beautiful concept would work in practice.

Nine of the species we care for have already reproduced in CC. Our Lake Pátzcuaro salamander, Mallorcan Midwife toads, Oriental fire-bellied toads, Bony-headed toads, Vietnamese crocodile newts and Mangarahara cichlids are reproducing regularly and with several keepers. Here, we are making great strides towards the target markers we set for a 40-year CC population: 70% has already been achieved for the Vietnamese crocodile newt, 67% for the Mangarahara cichlid, 61% for the Lake Pátzcuaro salamander, and 43% for the Mallorcan midwife toad. In the meantime, there have also been successes with the other fish species – but since we do not report larvae, they are not yet listed in the table.

Our problem child so far was the Demonic poison frog because for a long time we had not succeeded in even getting foundation animals. But we can now happily announce that we are one frog leap further: 15 animals could be distributed to three CC keepers after balance closing on November 1. We hope, especially for this extremely critically endangered species with an apparently tiny population of animals in human care, that the first successes will soon be achieved and keep all available fingers crossed for our keepers.

One of the tasks of CC’s pilot phase was to find an own form of organization for the time after. That is why the Citizen Conservation Foundation was founded this year as a non-profit limited liability company. In January 2023, it will go into the next round during the first supervisory and advisory board meeting. The specialist group for fish will be formally established, we will then also start with reptiles including our own specialist advisory board, and of course our amphibian program will continue to be expanded step by step. We are excited to see what will have happened by the time of the next semi-annual review, which we will publish for International Biodiversity Day on May 22, 2023. One or the other new species will certainly appear in the table then.

Citizen Conservation is nearing the end of its five-year pilot phase. During this time, we wanted to “show that it works”. In this case, “it” is the idea of setting up coordinated conservation breeding programs for endangered animal species in cooperation with private keepers and zoos and to test and improve the necessary processes. This includes all participants reporting their populations once every six months and publishing the resulting figures transparently here. The result after the sixth and next-to-last population count of the pilot phase: it works!

For several species, it has already been possible to build up a third to more than half of the desired population size in CC (see the numbers in the table). This goal defines the required population of reproducible animals at various husbandry locations in order to maintain the species in human care for over 40 years.

At the same time, we are continuing to expand our species portfolio. Three more amphibian species have been added over the last six months: After the first Ziegler’s Crocodile Newts (Tylototriton ziegleri) were made available to us by Cologne Zoo in October 2021, further animals have now been able to form a foundation stock of these tailed amphibians at CC. The first Titicaca Water Frogs (Telmatobius culeus) from the Löbbecke-Museum/Aquazoo Düsseldorf and Anderson’s Salamander (Ambystoma andersoni) from NaturaGart Ibbenbüren followed in early 2022. In terms of fish, the first specimens of the Nosy Be Cichlid (Ptychochromis oligacanthus) were transferred to CC keepers from Cologne Zoo. All of the species mentioned are severely or even critically endangered. And finally, we have started to build up an ex-situ population of German Fire Salamanders (Salamandra salamandra), which are currently suffering greatly from the salamander-eating fungus, threatening entire populations with extinction.

The animals come from offspring of the respective institutions. Of course, they only represent a very limited genetic diversity, as they can sometimes be traced back to individual pairs. However, our initial aim is to build up a functioning network of breeding facilities. We are taking a long-term view here and aim to obtain further founder animals at a later date in order to expand the gene pool of the species in question in the ex situ populations. However, the necessary knowledge about keeping and breeding these animals is already being collected, expanded, communicated and applied in practice.

More information on the CC species.

The growth continues: Citizen Conservation was able to expand its animal population again in the period of April to October 2021. And this despite the fact that some individual projects (the import of frogs and toads from Ecuador and West Africa) had to be postponed further due to the pandemic. But in return we have taken in a whole new class. We proudly welcome: fish!

The inclusion of fish is a logical step in CC’s strategy: the five-year pilot phase focused on amphibians ends in 2022, and it was part of our development mandate to prepare for the expansion of the program to other animal groups thereafter. So the Madagascan fish are the vanguard of a imminent CC #Fish section. The inclusion of other fish groups is currently in preparation as well as the establishment of corresponding organizational structures. The most important milestone is the spin-off of CC as an independent organization, which will take place soon.

But, of course, things will continue with our long-established amphibians. CC’s fire salamander project is now really taking off. The salamanders are threatened by a deadly fungus that is wiping out entire populations. CC is therefore preparing to build ex-situ capacities to conserve several lineages of the charismatic salamanders. Starting with 92 fire salamanders distributed among six breeders.

With the highly endangered Ziegler’s crocodile newt (Tylototrtion ziegleri) we were able to welcome another crocodile newt species from Vietnam into our program.

After first successes with the Vietnamese crocodile newt we had a setback – a bacterial infection killed one breeder’s flock of freshly metamorphosed newts so fast that unfortunately, all help was in vain. However, the other breeds are stable. Thus, the basic philosophy of CC already proves itself here: risk distribution by dividing the stock among many breeders. If something goes wrong with one, there are always others left. This makes our conservation breeding resistant to many problems.

We were successful with the Bony-headed Toads and the Chinese Fire-bellied Toads, which, as hoped, are proving to be optimal species for school and show facilities. We have also had some breeding successes with the Lake Patzcuaro Salamander. Since the larvae are still very young, they have not found their way into this inventory yet though.

Apart from that, we hope that our Almanzor fire salamanders will finally reach sexual maturity next year and provide for their first offspring. Good salamanders take time.

More information on the CC species.