Critically Endangered Ambhibian (White-Bellied Frog)

As we don’t all live in the same temperate zone – in some areas winter may come much sooner than in the South of Germany while in other areas there may be no winter at all – these news may be useless to some of you, but: As winter slowly is taking over all of Germany the German amphibian- and reptile-aid organization “RANA” – “rana” being Spanish for frog – lately makes a lot of advertisement for making your property cold-rigor-prove.
For example they spread information on how to build a place for these animals to spend winter: If you’ve got a garden big enough for this, you may dig up a pit that is a bit less than 1 meter deep and fill it with small pieces of dead wood. To prevent rain and snow from leaking through into this pit, you should also use natural sources – wood, rocks, trees, bushes etc. – to shelter the pit from rain and snow. Simply put rocks and /or wood on top of the layer of pieces of dead wood or build this pit near a bush or tree.
Also it happens that these animals spend the entire winter in a cellar they entered through windows, damage in the wall or otherwise. When they wake up in spring and realize, they can’t get out of this place as they neither climb stairs nor walls, it’s already too late and they die down there. To prevent this from happening you should make your cellar amphibian-prove. Just use some rough wood as some kind of connection between the cellar-floor and your cellar-window or build some kind of stairrail for amphibians they can use to get past the cellar’s staircase. If you think this construction looks hideous, just tell yourself that you usually don’t show your cellar to visitors anyway and that even if you did they would be understanding if you just explained to them the meaning behind this “hideous” construction.

As we don’t all live in the same temperate zone – in some areas winter may come much sooner than in the South of Germany while in other areas there may be no winter at all – these news may be useless to some of you, but: As winter slowly is taking over all of Germany the German amphibian- and reptile-aid organization “RANA” – “rana” being Spanish for frog – lately makes a lot of advertisement for making your property cold-rigor-prove.
For example they spread information on how to build a place for these animals to spend winter: If you’ve got a garden big enough for this, you may dig up a pit that is a bit less than 1 meter deep and fill it with small pieces of dead wood. To prevent rain and snow from leaking through into this pit, you should also use natural sources – wood, rocks, trees, bushes etc. – to shelter the pit from rain and snow. Simply put rocks and /or wood on top of the layer of pieces of dead wood or build this pit near a bush or tree.
Also it happens that these animals spend the entire winter in a cellar they entered through windows, damage in the wall or otherwise. When they wake up in spring and realize, they can’t get out of this place as they neither climb stairs nor walls, it’s already too late and they die down there. To prevent this from happening you should make your cellar amphibian-prove. Just use some rough wood as some kind of connection between the cellar-floor and your cellar-window or build some kind of stairrail for amphibians they can use to get past the cellar’s staircase. If you think this construction looks hideous, just tell yourself that you usually don’t show your cellar to visitors anyway and that even if you did they would be understanding if you just explained to them the meaning behind this “hideous” construction.

The German animal-aid organisation “Tierschutzbund” says that while most customers believe that the animals sold in pet shops here were born in captivity and while generally-speaking the law of Germany firstly indeed prohibits the capturing, killing and even domesticating of wild animals by private citizens within the borders of Germany – even including species that aren’t threatened with the exception of some pests like mice, rats, some insects etc. – and secondly has strict laws that regulate the import and export of wild animals, these laws are dealt with on a less strict level when it comes to the import of reptilia, amphibia and fish from Asia and Africa. I don’t quite understand why! Are they scared people might think that this is due to racist reasons if Germans don’t allow the import of animals that were captured by Asians or Africans? Do they falsely presume that contrary to mammals and birds reptilia and amphibia aren’t intelligent enough to have feelings like suffering in captivity? I really don’t understand that!
Anyway “Tierschutzbund” says that due to Germany letting through so many imports of these animals from Asia and Africa there are probably hundreds of animals that once lived in the wild, but now are sold in pet shops.

“Tagesschau” says that in Profen (Saxony-Anhalt) members of different animal-aid organisations collected hundreds of amphibians – including frogs, toads and newts – to bring them to a place in Saxony, several miles away. Reason is that in Profen they plan to increase the amount of coal they want to win per day, even if that means destroying nearby ponds and lakes where these animals were going to lay their eggs. Contrary to common belief frogs cannot find their way back to the place where they were born if they are too far away and they will simply lay their eggs somewhere else. If they hadn’t been removed however, they probably would have laid their eggs on the dry ground that once was the floor of their pond – seemingly unaware that this will make it impossible for their offspring to hatch.
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Re-upload 1: I posted the link “http://www.frogsaustralia.net.au/conservation/frog-declines.cfm” here for people who want to – and have the time to – help actively, i.e. by joining an organisation of which the task is to preserve these animals.
Re-upload 2: “http://amphibianrescue.org/tag/maersk/” and “http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/donationuse.html” try to preserve amphibians that perhaps would go extinct without human help. It goes without saying that they give people the chance of getting involved in their projects.

The German animal-aid organisation “Tierschutz Euskirchen” says that if you drive through Hesse (Germany) these days, you should do so very careful. Due to unknown reasons toads, frogs and newts from this federal state started their annual migration a bit earlier than usual this year. Thus already in February you might be able to see a toad trying to cross the road if you are in Hesse at the moment.