Episode 17
Where Have All the Golden Toads Gone? A Tale of Extinction and Hope
The Golden Toad
If you’re like me, by the time you first heard about the Golden Toad, it was already gone. A flash of gold high in the damp cloud forest of Costa Rica. This mysterious and elusive species, native to a tiny habitat in the misty clouds of Costa Rica, serves as a poignant reminder of the fragility of our ecosystems and the impacts of climate change.
In this episode, I chat with Kyle and Trevor Ritland, authors of “The Golden: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species.”
The Ritland brothers take us through their heartfelt exploration of this lost species, intertwining personal stories with scientific inquiry. Initially discovered in the 1960s, the golden toad became a fleeting marvel for scientists before being declared extinct just a few decades later. The episode paints a vivid picture of the golden toad’s unique habitat—its high-altitude, mist-laden world that mirrors the fragility of its existence.
As the brothers recount their journey, they reflect on the ecological and emotional impacts of extinction. They discuss the dual threats of climate change and the chytrid fungus that may have conspired to silence the golden toad forever.
Through their investigation, they emphasize the urgent need for conservation efforts in the face of global environmental changes. They also grapple with the ethical considerations of scientific inquiry, questioning how outsiders can respectfully engage with local ecosystems without causing harm. The episode leaves us pondering whether the golden toad truly vanished or if it remains hidden within unexplored niches of its mountainous home.
The Ritland brothers inspire hope, even in the face of extinction, reminding us all that the loss of biodiversity is not just a tale of despair but also a call to action to protect our planet’s delicate ecosystems.
Takeaways:
- The golden toad, once an icon of biodiversity in Costa Rica, was officially declared extinct in 2005, making its story one of both loss and ongoing mystery.
- Two primary factors contributed to the golden toad's extinction: climate change and the deadly chytrid fungus that decimated amphibian populations globally.
- Local communities play a crucial role in conservation efforts, balancing scientific inquiry with indigenous knowledge to protect the fragile ecosystems of Monteverde.
- The search for the golden toad highlights the interconnectedness of species survival and the importance of preserving habitats amidst climate change pressures.
- Despite being declared extinct, the possibility remains that the golden toad could still exist in undiscovered, damp microhabitats, prompting ongoing hope and exploration.
- Conservation initiatives like the Children’s Eternal Rainforest exemplify successful collaborations between local expertise and international support, aiming to preserve biodiversity.
Links, References, and Resources
- The Golden Toad: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species
- Kyle and Trevor Ritland
- Adventure Term
- Children’s Eternal Rainforest
- Monteverde Conservation League
- International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List
- The Golden Toad
- Chytrid and Climate
- Global Warming is Real
Transcript
When wind and rain swirl in misty clouds, they make their appearance.
Speaker A:The golden toad emerging from its craggy underground hideouts for another wet season.
Speaker A:Clusters of gold adorn the eddies and pools high in the remote Costa Rican elfin cloud forest.
Speaker A:The golden toad was always elusive.
Speaker A: Unknown to science until: Speaker A:A remote, fragile, high ridgeline at the far reach of human intrusion along the Continental divide, where Pacific and Atlantic weather systems converge.
Speaker A:What better place for the golden toad to make its home?
Speaker A:A rarefied microhabitat of mist and clouds, damp and wet.
Speaker A:That's the way it was for a short while now, the stuff of legend and memory.
Speaker A:The enigmatic, alluring golden toad vanished almost as soon as humans first laid eyes on them.
Speaker A:Or have they?
Speaker A:In this episode, I talk with Kyle and Trevor Ritland, authors of the Golden An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species.
Speaker A:The Ritland brothers weave a personal narrative laced with science, adventure, history and mystery, even at the height of what we'll call their discovery.
Speaker A:From our anthropomorphic perspective, seeing a golden toad in the wild required effort, experience and timing.
Speaker A: y local expert Eladio Cruz in: Speaker A: including Trevor and Kyle in: Speaker A: But by: Speaker A:Which leaves us with two mysteries.
Speaker A:First, what killed the golden toad?
Speaker A:Their sudden disappearance coincided with two potentially contributing factors to their demise.
Speaker A:Climate change and disease.
Speaker A: In the: Speaker A:The chytrid pandemic was quietly decimating amphibians everywhere.
Speaker A:Scientists were looking.
Speaker A:At the same time, changing climate conditions combined with an El Nido led to drier conditions disturbing the delicate balance of the golden toads small habitat.
Speaker A:These multiple stressors simultaneously pressing in on our little toad and humans penchant for controversy leads to debate in some quarters over what finally silenced the golden toad along the high Cordillera de Telaron ridgeline.
Speaker A:With no bodies to be found, it may be impossible to pin down the exact cause of death.
Speaker A:However, given the circumstances of the golden toad's disappearance, it's reasonable to assume that no single Factor is to blame.
Speaker A:It's all interconnected.
Speaker A:It's been said that chytrid was the bullet that killed the golden toad, but climate change pulled the trigger, and it just wasn't this one species.
Speaker A:The golden toad was one of 25amphibians that disappeared in Costa Rica during this period, fully half of all amphibian species in the region.
Speaker A:Some have since recovered.
Speaker A:Which leads us to our next mystery.
Speaker A:Is the golden toad really gone?
Speaker A:Given the short time and limited resources to understand the species and its impossibly small habitat, could they still be out there in unseen pockets of survival?
Speaker A:Well, officially, no.
Speaker A:They have been classified as extinct.
Speaker A:But Trevor, Kyle and a few others still hope that in some small, damp plot of land where muddy boots have yet to find it, the golden toad clings to life.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:Nonetheless, it's been a long time since anyone's seen one.
Speaker A:If they are out there, resilient in the face of climate change and chytrid, then they likely face another existential challenge.
Speaker A:They are at the top of their mountain.
Speaker A:Wherever they are, they have nowhere higher to go in a warming climate.
Speaker A:Whether it was climate change, chytrid, or the cumulative effects of a human population expanding at full speed across the globe, there are lessons we can draw from the golden toad, the poster frog, if you will, of biodiversity and environmental stewardship in the Anthropocene.
Speaker A:As we'll learn in the upcoming conversation, the Children's Eternal Rainforest in Monteverde, the largest private conservation reserve in Costa Rica, combines global awareness and resources with local expertise and endemic experience, serving as a model for environmental stewardship to the benefit of all creatures.
Speaker A:This is the story of the golden toad and those who sought to know it, among them, Kyle and Trevor Ritland.
Speaker A:Let's let them take up the story from here.
Speaker C:First.
Speaker C:It's a great book.
Speaker C:It's very.
Speaker C:It was compelling.
Speaker C:It was a lot of narrative lines, the personal stories, and then, of course, the search for the golden toad, and then the lessons we can glean from that.
Speaker C:What inspired your interest to pursue this so doggedly to find the golden toad?
Speaker C:What sparked that?
Speaker B:I think it starts with our dad and a story we heard from our dad.
Speaker B:He had colleagues that he had worked with at the University of Florida when he did his graduate work there.
Speaker B:He was doing Viceroy butterfly research and he had friends who were doing butterfly research in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and he visited Monteverde and he heard the stories from them, from local people, about this really unique, really interesting, iconic Monteverde golden toad.
Speaker B:It was only found on this one Ridgeline above this one town in Costa Rica.
Speaker B:And he brought that story home and he told it to me and Kyle when we were, I don't know, five or six years old.
Speaker B:And by that time, the story ended with, this toad is extinct.
Speaker B:And nobody's seen it for, by that time, probably about 10 years.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:And I think, like, that.
Speaker B:That ending to a story that you're told as a little kid is a memorable ending.
Speaker B:It's like, here's this really beautiful, bright orange toad that is super unique and only known to this one place, and it's gone.
Speaker B:And I think that kind of stuck with us.
Speaker B:And he had all Thorsom stories about cool animals and cool things he'd seen on his travels and his research, but that one was kind of one that, like, rattled around the back of our brains for a while.
Speaker B:And then, kind of coincidentally, I ended up living and working in Monteverde after college, and I started to hear the local version of the story and the other details that you don't get when the story is whittled down to a couple sentences that are printed in a college textbook.
Speaker B:And that made me really want to start to just, even for my own curiosity, start investigating the local version of that story and see what other kind of untold perspectives and secrets were still out there.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:On your first trip to Monteverde, did you start looking for the golden toad then, or was it after your first period in Monteverde?
Speaker D:I remember I was in California at the time, and at that point, Trevor would be texting me little bits and pieces of this story as he was learning about it.
Speaker D:And I remember him telling me about one Costa Rican guide who had a tourist with them at one point who was saying, I'm going to be the one who finds the golden toad and would go off into the forest and show up, you know, miles and miles down on the other side of town later.
Speaker D:So it was definitely something that was out in the world, out on people's radar.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So the search for the golden toad, what was the local community's reaction to all these people coming up searching for the golden toad?
Speaker B:Yeah, Monteverde is a really interesting community in terms of cultural identity.
Speaker B:Monteverde as a community.
Speaker B:It started with, like, local Costa Rican homesteaders who were going up there to.
Speaker B:To farm and settle in that area.
Speaker B: And then in the: Speaker B:It was against their religion to take part in the war economy.
Speaker B:And so they explored different places in Central America and picked Costa Rica and found this largely unsettled land up above Sterra, Plano, Santa Elena, the other communities that Costa Rican homesteaders had mostly settled in.
Speaker B:And they settled in that land.
Speaker B:And so when people started to realize how biodiverse the cloud forest of that area were, it kind of created this perfect ecosystem to allow foreign biologists to come in and start studying those species and those ecosystems because they had this English speaking culture that was there that made it more accessible than a lot of other places in the tropics.
Speaker B:And so combining that culture with the innate biodiversity of this community really made it an ecological hotspot for biologists and eventually tourism.
Speaker B:But first, in the, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, it was a lot of biologists coming in to study whether it was army ants or tropical butterflies or golden toads.
Speaker B:And in the book we tell a couple of these stories about a little girl trying to carry a golden toad down from the cloud forest reserve because.
Speaker D:She wanted to keep it.
Speaker B:But like, that's kind of a cute version of that story, But I think this was a time where collecting was happening a lot.
Speaker B:And some of that was by the books, collecting by scientific researchers.
Speaker B:And I, I think there were concerns around people coming in and almost plundering the treasure trove of if this is the only place in the world this species exists.
Speaker B:You know, I want one, I want one for my terrarium.
Speaker B:And that's actually one of the things that we explore in the book is could this have been a contributor to the disappearance of the golden toad?
Speaker B:People having that temptation to carry some of these home for themselves?
Speaker C:Yeah, that brings up the juxtaposition between the biologist coming in from outside wanting to study that and their disturbance, and then the local community's knowledge of the area and respect.
Speaker C:It's their land, it's, in a way, it's their golden toad.
Speaker D:Yep.
Speaker C:How is that balanced?
Speaker C:I think the biologists, their work is important to understand what's happening, especially with the extinctions that are happening.
Speaker C:But also there are a bunch of people coming in and they're disturbing the ecosystem for sure.
Speaker B:And, and I want to let Kyle speak on this because I'm sure he has some ideas.
Speaker B:But I'll just say super briefly, one of the ideas that we got really interested in throughout the process of researching this book was that idea of colonial science, of people coming in from outside the area and studying it and then maybe profiting off of it.
Speaker B:And that's something, honestly, that we wrestled with as the authors of this book.
Speaker B:Because it's not our toad either.
Speaker B:It's not our story.
Speaker B:For a long time in the beginning of this process, we asked ourselves that questions, are we the right people to tell this story?
Speaker B:Because I think you have a history of that, especially in Central America, Latin America, of foreign people, whether they be biologists or storytellers like us, coming in and staking a claim to this area.
Speaker B:And I think the other side of that coin is you protect what you love and you love what you understand.
Speaker B:And I think the biologists of that period really did do a good job of partially bringing these endemic, unique species to the larger world and using them as a call to action to protect those forests, but also like sharing that knowledge within the local community too.
Speaker B:And there's great initiatives in Monteverde of like training forest guides so they know, they've always known what these frogs are.
Speaker B:They know the frogs in these ecosystems better than anyone.
Speaker B:But maybe teaching them things they don't know about the frogs so they can share that knowledge with tourists and bring more support and attention to these forests that do need support.
Speaker B:That's my super quick thoughts on a very complex topic, but I'm interested to hear what Kyle has to say too.
Speaker D:Yeah, it's a challenging question for sure.
Speaker D:I think you see that in a lot of these cases and it's obviously something, biologists are aware of that whenever anybody.
Speaker D:But we'll talk about biologists for a second, go into these vulnerable ecosystems to study something, learn about something, share it with the public, and also maybe even in some of these cases, learn how to help protect it.
Speaker D:They're absolutely risking disturbing that ecosystem as well.
Speaker D:And for a species like the golden toad that had such a limited range and was so vulnerable in a lot of ways, I think it's absolutely fair to ask that question of how do we balance wanting to build a scientific understanding of this, informed by a local understanding.
Speaker D:But even then, how much are you risking disturbing that species, disturbing that ecosystem?
Speaker D:I mean, we can talk specifically about the golden toad and the theories of what led to its extinction, one of which being the chytrid pandemic, which we later learn can absolutely be carried into these ecosystems on the boots of researchers or tourists or anybody or locals.
Speaker D:And it really is a perfect example of the impact, the negative impact that we can have going into these fragile places, even with good intentions.
Speaker D:And when we look at the story of the golden toad, I think we do have to ask that question of if, if chytrid was, did play a role in the extinction of the golden Toad, was it perhaps brought there in one way or another?
Speaker D:I think, you know, we can just learn from that on a, on a big scale as well, of remembering that we are not invisible, even though we might try to the observers.
Speaker D:We do have an impact everywhere we go.
Speaker C:That's a rule of physics, right?
Speaker D:Study something without disrupting it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:What is the state of the chytrid pandemic?
Speaker D:It's not over.
Speaker D:Go back and look briefly at the story of chytrid.
Speaker D: y tangible impact in the late: Speaker D:Individual biologists all across the globe started seeing amphibian species decline, disappear.
Speaker D:And at first they were thought to be isolated incidents, but as time went on and these researchers started coming together and sharing their stories, it was noted that, okay, this is an amphibian crisis happening all across the planet.
Speaker D: And in the early: Speaker D:And since then, a lot has been learned about the mechanics of that disease and its spread.
Speaker D:There are a lot of great, inspiring stories of individuals and groups that have implicated really good mitigating factors to slow the impact of chytrid.
Speaker D:But the golden toad is obviously not the only one to feel the pain of that.
Speaker D:Hundreds of amphibian species have seen the impacts of that.
Speaker D:Close to 100 have vanished entirely because of chytrid.
Speaker D:And it continues to evolve and change.
Speaker D:And when we maybe sometimes think we have some ways to treat it, it changes.
Speaker D:It is a living creature, just like the frogs and toads.
Speaker D:And as climate continues to change, it continues to make other parts of the world better suited for a disease like this and to limit the survival range of amphibians.
Speaker D:And there are others like it.
Speaker D:There's a version that kills salamanders that has not yet crossed the North American continent, but it could.
Speaker D:And if it's established here, we're going to see the same thing happen to salamanders as we did to frogs and toads.
Speaker C:Reading the end of the book, when you're having your walk with your father looking for the salamanders, and so it hasn't come across from what I've seen.
Speaker D:And I won't claim to be 100% current on all of this information, but from what I've seen, there have been isolated cases that crop up from time to time, but it has not established in any sort of pandemic like way in the southeastern United in the United States in general.
Speaker D:But I'm specifically concerned about the southeastern United States because that's where Trevor and I grew up.
Speaker D:And it is the global hotspot of salamander biodiversity, the gem of salamanders in the world.
Speaker D:And a lot of eyes are on that area.
Speaker D:You talk to different folks, and some people say it's just a matter of time before it gets there.
Speaker D:I think that we have a chance to learn from the story of the golden toad and say we didn't know that chytrid existed.
Speaker D:The golden toad is already gone by the time the world knew that chytrid existed.
Speaker D:We now know what the stakes are and we have a chance to maybe act sooner this time.
Speaker C:The first time I heard about the golden toad, I know there's this, I guess it's still ongoing controversy between chytrid and climate change.
Speaker B:And I don't know that that's ever going to fully.
Speaker C:Yeah, what's interesting about that is because I've been writing about climate change for a long time now, and at least the way I remember it, it's kind of just the story floated across my screen about the golden toad being the first species to go extinct due to climate change.
Speaker C:So whoever wrote that story that I saw was saying it was climate change.
Speaker B:Yeah, the language that we.
Speaker B:The language that we use in the book, because like you reference, there is, like, contention around this, and there was.
Speaker B:And it's actually a really interesting period to go back and talk to people who were in the trenches in that.
Speaker D:Period, because they were all, you know.
Speaker B:People on both sides of this debate were doing what they thought was right.
Speaker B:They were trying their damnedest to get public support and funding, a limited amount of it focused on the area that they thought required the public support and attention, whether that was pandemics and disease or climate change, or a mixture of both.
Speaker B: his amphibian surveys in the: Speaker B:The golden toad is the brightest and shiniest example of that.
Speaker B:But in Monteverde, 25 of their 50 known amphibians disappeared at that time.
Speaker B:Also.
Speaker B:Some of those have started to reemerge here and there.
Speaker B:Which current state of chytrid and climate change like that's the more hopeful way to look at it is there are these kind of here and there cases of species seeming to develop natural resistance to this pandemic and starting to recolonize areas that they disappeared from.
Speaker B:And so that gives me hope.
Speaker B:If we can see a population that is pushing back against chytrid, I feel like they're doing their part.
Speaker B:If we can do our part and give them the forest to come back to and the climate conditions they need in order to maintain that resistance, that's a partnership between us and the frogs.
Speaker B:That needs to happen.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:This contention between Kitrad or climate change, it seems like everything's interrelated, so it really isn't a contention.
Speaker C:It's climate change made the conditions for chytrid to, you know, blow up.
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker D:That's how we see it.
Speaker D:One of the things that really got me involved in the interest in this story was when Trevor kind of pitched me on the murder mystery aspect of it, that there's the toad that disappeared, no bodies were found and we don't know what did it.
Speaker D:You know, at this point, of course we know about chytrid.
Speaker D:It's not that anybody needs to say what is this chytrid thing, but we don't know what killed the golden toad.
Speaker D:We can't be sure.
Speaker D:If we look at this in terms of a murder mystery, at best we have circumstantial evidence.
Speaker D:We know that there was a killer active in the area at that time.
Speaker D:We do not know for sure if it is the one that killed the golden toad.
Speaker D:And we certainly couldn't make the claim that it acted alone.
Speaker D:I think we present the story of the different folks working on either sides of these things, making the case for kitri, making the case for climate again, because they're trying to raise the public interest and the funding for these different causes and very aware that nothing acts alone in nature.
Speaker D:But the way that these two, in this case, killers, really conspired to kill the golden toad, I think it's an interesting side of the story.
Speaker D:When you look at it through that lens of could chytrid have killed the golden toad alone, maybe it's really very doubtful that it did.
Speaker D:When we also look at the climate data that's happening at that time, the only way that chytrid, I mean, there are two accomplices, I would say, in chytrid as a killer, one of those is climate.
Speaker D:Climate enabled the spread.
Speaker D:Climate change enabled, not only put more pressure on amphibians and shrunk their survival range, but also change the condition to enable chytrid as a disease to take hold and spread more easily.
Speaker D:I think the other accomplice to chytrid is us human beings creating a globalized world and assisting in the spread of these things.
Speaker D:We certainly wouldn't say that anything, I think, killed the golden toad alone.
Speaker D:There are multiple factors working together, for sure.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:The murder mystery aspect was compelling.
Speaker C:You know what was interesting for me anyway, is that who was it that it was Eladia who reportedly saw the last one.
Speaker C: sighting was Frank Hensley in: Speaker D:Yep.
Speaker B:And he took a photo of it.
Speaker B:And we're really happy to include that photo in the book.
Speaker B:It hasn't been published before, but it's one of those.
Speaker B:This is another great example where I feel like Frank Hensley often gets left out of this story.
Speaker B:He's the guy who saw the last golden toad, the last documented golden toad, at least in this area that it was known for.
Speaker B:Documented.
Speaker B:Took a photo of it.
Speaker B:I had never really heard his side of the story before, so it was really cool to get to hear his experience and kind of his relationship with having that identity and living with that knowledge of.
Speaker B:I was the last person to see this.
Speaker C:That must be.
Speaker C:I don't know how you would feel about that.
Speaker C:I saw the last golden toad just like a year or so before there were hundreds of them and then gone.
Speaker C:How a species just absolutely disappears in the space of a year or two.
Speaker C:How does that.
Speaker C:Well, I guess it had climate change in Chytrid or maybe.
Speaker B:Well, and I think the golden toad is a really.
Speaker B:I mean, this is why this book is about the golden toad and not the 24 other species that disappeared from Monteverde.
Speaker B:They're just as important as significant.
Speaker B:But the golden toad is a really unique case because it was so specialized and its range was so limited.
Speaker B:And so the biologists that were observing it, to their knowledge, were observing more or less the entire species right here in this one spot.
Speaker B:And it was like the perfect storm of conditions, I think, that that collaborated for their extinction.
Speaker B:And so you have potentially the chytrid fungus arriving in this area at that time.
Speaker B: We also had the: Speaker B:And Marty Crump writes about this in her book.
Speaker B:She was one of the biologists observing the golden toes at this time.
Speaker B:Just unusually warm and dry conditions.
Speaker B:Local streams fell to a record low.
Speaker B:And she witnessed the kind of ephemeral breeding pools drying at the top of the mountain that the golden toads laid their eggs in.
Speaker B:And so you have this fungus potentially wiping out the adult.
Speaker B:And then you have the dry conditions preventing any new golden toads being born.
Speaker B:For a species whose range was limited, you really only need one or two bad years and then they're gone.
Speaker B:And that may very well be what happened to the golden toads.
Speaker B:They live at the top of their mountain.
Speaker B:There are other species that could move higher up the mountain.
Speaker B:It's like cloud banks rise, mist decreases.
Speaker B:In Monteverde, you have today fer de lance snakes moving up the mountain from the San Luis Valley because it's getting warmer and drier and conditions are getting more within their survival range.
Speaker B:Those species can move and adapt.
Speaker B:The golden toads were at the top.
Speaker B:There was nowhere for them to go.
Speaker B:There was no more ways that they could adapt to those changes.
Speaker B:And so it may have been a case of those perfect storm of bad conditions conspiring to give them the two or three bad years that they needed to disappear.
Speaker C:Yeah, though it seems like it wouldn't have been the first El Nino that had come the first time that maybe there have been some dry years and they apparently survived those.
Speaker C:So there was another factor involved.
Speaker C:Volkitra perhaps.
Speaker C:It seems like that wouldn't have been the first time there had been a couple of dry years for sure.
Speaker D:Yep.
Speaker B:And that's where I think that I'm going to steal a line from Alan Pounds here and I hope I get it right.
Speaker B:I think the way that he has phrased it is Chytrid was the bullet that killed the golden toad, but climate change pulled the trigger.
Speaker B:Kyle had mentioned this earlier, like you can probably survive one of those two things or be resilient enough to adapt or escape in one way or another.
Speaker B:I think when those things combined, that's what really put the death warrant out for the golden toad.
Speaker D:Yeah, I think another interesting, just another interesting detail about the golden toad and its story as well is we have to keep in mind it wasn't known to science for all that long, first scientifically described.
Speaker D: if I get any dates wrong, but: Speaker D:And then on top of that, there's the limited observable window for its species.
Speaker D:Anyway.
Speaker D:These are amphibians that are underground for a large portion of the year, come out for the rain at the beginning of the rainy season, and then you only can observe them for a short period of time.
Speaker D:Frank Hensley, when he saw the last one, didn't think that's the last one.
Speaker D:He Thought, well, you know, weird.
Speaker D:I only saw one.
Speaker D:I must have missed the season.
Speaker D:And then they just never came back.
Speaker D:That's also what makes the question of their potentially continued existence such an interesting one, is it's not like you could go out there right now and see are there golden toads out.
Speaker D:You have to time it exactly right and know this is when the golden toads come out.
Speaker D:I have to be in the exact right place at the exact right time to even have the question of possibly observing them.
Speaker D:And throw into that the wrench of a changing climate changes that window.
Speaker D:Nobody could tell you accurately now what time the golden toads would come out each year.
Speaker C:Yeah, but there's still the possibility that they're out there somewhere.
Speaker C:But with a changing climate, is there a habitat for them?
Speaker C:Because they were, like you say, at the top.
Speaker C:They were at the top of the mountain and the climate is changing.
Speaker C:Let's just say maybe they're out there.
Speaker C:But is their habitat still where they might possibly be hiding somewhere?
Speaker B:I think so.
Speaker B:When we.
Speaker B: So in: Speaker B:So actually in a place that golden toads had not been observed up to that point, which gives me hope in a couple of ways.
Speaker B:One being that maybe their range was wider than we believed it to be.
Speaker B:Kyle referenced that we only collectively were able to scientifically study this species for, like 30 years.
Speaker B:And not a lot of studying happened during that time.
Speaker B:That gives us hope that they could be out there on these other kind of high mountaintops along this ridgeline that are not frequently explored by people, certainly not by people who know what they're looking for, if they're out there looking for golden toads.
Speaker B: ut when we went back there in: Speaker B:It was misty, it was rainy.
Speaker B:There was water in these pools.
Speaker B:While that's not to downplay the effects of climate change that are happening in Monteverde, you can literally see it.
Speaker B:There's more landslides, there's more tropical storms.
Speaker B:The dry years are drier and the wet years are wetter.
Speaker B:I do still think, personally, I have hope that there is this little window of existence that the golden toads can survive in.
Speaker B:But for how much longer that will be the case is an open question.
Speaker B:And it also relies on us preserving that forest.
Speaker B:So there's great organizations in Monteverde, like the Children's Tunnel Rainforest, the Monteverde Conservation League that are working to patchwork together these forests for these species to have a habitat to come back to if they want to.
Speaker B:And there's also great climate change mitigation efforts happening in Monteverde, which I think is super important.
Speaker B:There's an organization called Cor Klima and they actually put in electric vehicle charging stations all the way the mountain so that people can now drive electric cars.
Speaker B:These are little things that people are doing that maybe they're not going to shape the global narrative of climate change, but maybe they'll have an impact in these ecosystems where it's most important.
Speaker B:And just going back to forest connectivity, I was in Costa Rica in March and I was lucky enough to see this population of Atelopis, various variable harlequin frogs, which is another species that disappeared from Costa Rica around the time of the golden toad.
Speaker B:And this population is doing well, a lot of frogs, but they're on this island of forest and they're surrounded by pineapple plantations.
Speaker B:And so for that species to have a future, for that population to have a future, there needs to be a biological corridor for them to be able to get genetic diversity with other species.
Speaker B:This is something Monteverde is doing really well, is keeping those corridors intact and building those.
Speaker B:But it probably needs to be happening elsewhere, too.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:I do have hope that the golden toad still has those, those very fine, very specific conditions that are necessary for its survival.
Speaker B:And I hope that we can keep that environment alive for it.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Talk a little more about Monteverde.
Speaker C:What's happening there seems like a good model for collaboration between global efforts and local communities in climate mitigation.
Speaker C:So talk a little more about that.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I could go deep dive into the founding of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, and I'll tell the quick version.
Speaker B:Monteverde is a really interesting example because of the mix of cultures and mix of personalities.
Speaker B:And so the first, the Cloud Forest Reserve that was founded in Monteverde, the first kind of protected forest reserve, was a collaboration between the local Quaker settlers, the local Costa Rican people visiting biologists, specifically George Powell, who realize this forest is disappearing and we need to protect it.
Speaker B:International organizations who had the funding and capabilities to monetarily support the creation of those reserves because they're not cheap and they're not free.
Speaker B:And so organizations like Audubon Society and World Wildlife Fund contributed to those efforts, but deferred to the local knowledge and local experience of the people on the ground there, whether that was George Powell or Wolf Winden who was one of the Quaker settlers, who was a chainsaw salesman and became a conservationist.
Speaker B:And also people like Eladio Cruz, who was out there, hired by Wolf Guinden as a kid to cut down forest for pastures, fell in love with the forest, became a conservationist, ended up being the first person to give his land to what would become the Children's Eternal Rainforest, which is the largest private reserve in Costa Rica.
Speaker B: search for the golden toad in: Speaker B:But defer to the local knowledge of the Monteverde Conservation League, people like Eladio Cruz, Luis Solano who know those forests better than anybody else because they grew up there and they're like rangers in the reserve.
Speaker B:I think that collaboration is super important and I don't think it would work with only one or only the other.
Speaker B:It's like we can have all the money in the world, but if you don't understand the local culture and the local ecosystems, that money's going to go to waste.
Speaker B:And you can have all the desire and local knowledge that you want, but if you don't have support from organizations that have the funding that you need to be able to protect these forests that need protecting, you're just going to kind of spin your wheels.
Speaker B:And so to me, it's a really positive example of that collaboration between like large external international organizations and very grassroots conservation.
Speaker C:Yeah, that is very important.
Speaker C:Monteverdi is a great example that there's a, elsewhere a problem of just throwing money at a problem that doesn't really, it doesn't really land because you're not taking in the local knowledge and local cultures.
Speaker D:We've seen it.
Speaker D:I think you see it.
Speaker D:Trevor and I have a little small nonprofit that we operate with is really just a vehicle to do things like the Golden Toad historium to look at these stories of endangered species and try to share them.
Speaker D:I think that you definitely see cases of well intentioned cases of wanting to put resources towards something without understanding the local politics of it or just the local knowledge, respecting the local knowledge.
Speaker D:There are cases where it impacts the local people in a way where conservation can be looked at negatively.
Speaker D:You know, where we're going to set aside this land or protect these species in a way that impacts the local population unfairly.
Speaker D:And from the outside, especially as somebody who loves nature and loves animals, it's very easy to say, well, we should prioritize endangered species and endangered ecosystems.
Speaker D:But when you're doing that at the expense of the people who have been there for Generations and make their living off the area.
Speaker D:Monteverde is an interesting case where it's a very good example in that a lot of the locals are involved, not all of them.
Speaker D:Many locals are involved in some ways in the environment and protection and ecology.
Speaker D:And if you look at cases in the U.S. for example, you can run into people's livelihoods being impacted by wolf control populations or Florida panthers or red wolves.
Speaker D:In North Carolina as well, there are certainly cases where you run up against impacting local culture, local politics.
Speaker D:And I don't think there's a clear solution that we have seen great examples of people in these organizations.
Speaker D:I'll call out some examples.
Speaker D:We've worked with Defenders of Wildlife in the Southeast.
Speaker D:They've got folks who are on the ground working with locals to understand how are these things going to impact the people in the area, Rather than just saying, we're going to impose these particular things.
Speaker D:How can we actually make this build off of local knowledge rather than just coming in from the outside and trying to put in these regulations?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And sorry, just super quickly to reference the throwing money at the problem thing.
Speaker B:I think there's a ton of examples out there where, you know, you donate your money and you go, I hope this is going to a good cause.
Speaker B:You don't really know, you know, where it's going.
Speaker B:The story I love about Monteverde and the founding of the children's eternal rainforest is visiting biologists who had done fieldwork in Monteverde gave a talk to some school kids at school in Sweden about, here's these great forests in Costa Rica and they need to be protected.
Speaker B:And then all those kids got together like, well, we can buy this rainforest for conservation for like a few dollars per hectare.
Speaker B:Let's do that.
Speaker B:And it snowballed and more and more people contributed money to this fund and it became the children's rainforest, which is like one of the habitats the golden toad might come back to.
Speaker B:It's a really great example of a little goes a long way.
Speaker B:And if you're like, I want to do something and you don't know what you should do, putting your money into these organizations that just buy forest and protect it and collaborate with the local people who know that land, rather than just like, okay, farmer, here's some money, we're going to take your forest and fence it off.
Speaker B:That's not how it works.
Speaker B:It's like, it's close collaboration with neighbors.
Speaker B:To me, it's a really positive example of this is something that you can do with your money that Actually has an impact.
Speaker B:So, Jeff Bezos, if you're listening and you want to get rid of some of that, you know, 50 million.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker D:Yes.
Speaker B:This is a good, good place to.
Speaker D:Put some of that money.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:That brings up the idea of the importance of storytelling, which is what you guys do.
Speaker C:Your nonprofit is Adventure Term, is that right?
Speaker D:Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker C:Tell me about that.
Speaker C:What's the idea behind Adventure?
Speaker B:You want to do the.
Speaker D:Sure, yeah.
Speaker D:I'll do your version.
Speaker D:So this, basically, it comes out of who we are, I think, and what we grew up with, which, you know, we mentioned.
Speaker D:Our father was a biolog.
Speaker D:He's also a storyteller.
Speaker D:That's why he liked being a college professor, was he chose the college that he taught at because it didn't require him to publish research papers back to back to back.
Speaker D:He liked being in the classroom, taking kids out into the woods and telling them stories about animals.
Speaker D:And so we grew up with that, and we went to that college and we took his classes, and we love doing that as well.
Speaker D:And our senior year, we did a little independent study where we wanted to go down to the Florida Everglades and make a documentary about American crocodiles.
Speaker D:We had the idea that we'd just go do it, but as some of our friends heard about it, they wanted to come do it as well.
Speaker D:And we had some background in biology, ecology.
Speaker D:We'd taken a lot of classes.
Speaker D:We'd had grown up with this stuff, and a lot of our friends hadn't.
Speaker D:And we said to ourselves, that doesn't need to limit it.
Speaker D:If people are interested in this, they should be able to find a way to be involved in it.
Speaker D:And so one of our friends ended up taking photos for that trip.
Speaker D:Another one ended up helping with the video and video editing and things like that.
Speaker D:And that was kind of where this idea came from of, you know, we have these dual passions of environmentalism, conservation, and storytelling.
Speaker D:We're both English majors and writers and videographers.
Speaker D:So the things that we like to do.
Speaker D:And it comes out of this belief that a lot of people care about the environment.
Speaker D:And just because maybe they don't have a biology degree doesn't mean that they can't find some way to be a proponent of whatever that looks like.
Speaker D:And so in the aftermath of that, we just formed this very small nonprofit that really just exists to do these sorts of things.
Speaker D:We've done a few trips, expeditions, where we take students into these threatened ecosystems, looking at certain endangered species and trying to tell their story.
Speaker D:We've Done.
Speaker D:Red wolves, like I mentioned in North Carolina, Florida Panthers in Florida.
Speaker D:And the golden toad really came out of one of those as well.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We worked with two local high school students at Monteverde School.
Speaker B:They came out and we taught them.
Speaker D:Here'S how you work a camera and.
Speaker B:Some photography stuff and gave them the tools to write about this thing or tell the story about this thing that was super inherent to their community.
Speaker B:And it was really awesome to have them on that trip to be a part of it and hear from their perspective what makes this a compelling story.
Speaker C:That lends itself to, you know, it's very easy with climate change and all these things that are happening, to just feel overwhelmed.
Speaker C:There's nothing I can possibly do.
Speaker C:But that's not the case.
Speaker C:Individual action does make a difference, and I think the story of the golden toad and Monteverdi bears that out.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:That is one of the key lessons that we hope people take away from this story, is that individual actions definitely matter.
Speaker B:You can look at that example of the story from the person who gave a presentation in Sweden.
Speaker B:We kind of close the book with this story of.
Speaker B:I won't spoil the whole story, but basically one guy in rural Costa Rica buying a cattle pasture and turning it into a forest reserve.
Speaker B:And then a few years later, biologists discovered this frog that had never been described by science, the Tapir Valley tree frog, that was one person.
Speaker B:And working in tandem with their community and needing community support.
Speaker B:But individual actions, I think, do make a difference.
Speaker B:And it's really easy to get a little beat down in today's day and age, especially when you think about climate change.
Speaker B:And is my reusable bag doing enough?
Speaker B:But there are ways that people can make differences individually, whether that's buying a cattle pasture and turning into a forest or telling somebody a story, like our dad told us a story about the golden toad, which set us on this.
Speaker D:Path, or even, I'll just say, even just caring.
Speaker D:That's one thing that we hope from this book as well, and it's part of the reason why we wrot it in the way we did.
Speaker D:Hopefully it pulls in some manner of general readership as an adventure story rather than just a scientific text, because that is maybe the most powerful thing that people, Individuals can do, is just care.
Speaker D:You know, there's so much, of course, in today's world to care about and passions and things that you should be concerned about.
Speaker D:You know, the environment is one of them.
Speaker D:And if people can be connected with that and just care about it and make it something that is valuable to them.
Speaker D:It will have an impact.
Speaker D:One of the things that Tara and I talked about while writing this book is that we're absolutely going to be accused of anthropomorphizing these frogs, of putting human ideas and human emotions into them, but that's really not the goal.
Speaker D:The goal is just to ask, what is it like to be a frog on the edge of the world, the edge of extinction?
Speaker D:Because the same things that came for the golden toad are coming for us.
Speaker D:Pandemics and climate change.
Speaker D:And we are the golden toad.
Speaker D:I think if people care about their own existence and their own future, they inherently care about the golden toad and the environment and other species like it as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, it was interesting the way you put the human emotions into the golden toad, but it did help to make a person think about these issues.
Speaker C:And, you know, the golden toad got to the top of its mountain and it might be extinct, maybe not.
Speaker C:But you can also think about, well, okay, humans.
Speaker D:Well, we're going to get to the.
Speaker C:Top of our mountain one day and have nowhere to go.
Speaker C:And the book was an adventure story, and you're weaving in all these different narratives.
Speaker C:You talk about the golden toad, but that expands out into all these larger issues.
Speaker C:So kudos.
Speaker C:It was a very interesting, very compelling read.
Speaker C:How do you guys, you know, you guys ever get your collaboration?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:You ever get mad at each other?
Speaker D:We've had some productive.
Speaker B:Not as much as we used to.
Speaker D:Yeah, we really learned how to work.
Speaker B:Well together on this one.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Which is good.
Speaker D:We've done a lot.
Speaker D:You know, we're twins.
Speaker D:We grew up together.
Speaker D:I think we have learned how to work well together in these kinds of projects.
Speaker D:I honestly think that the book would not be what it is if it were just one of us writing it.
Speaker D:Trevor was really a driving force behind this story.
Speaker D:It was his story from the start.
Speaker D:I got pulled into it out of interest and collaboration and brought some things to it that were uniquely mine.
Speaker D:But specifically, I would say the sections on what killed the golden toad, the question of climate, and kindred, really were really well served by there being two of us, because Trevor basically went off and did all the research about the climate aspect, and I went off and did all the research and interviews and conversations about the kindred aspect.
Speaker D:And then when we started writing those chapters and putting it together, we basically embodied the people we had talked to and had our own miniature war on climate versus Kitchard to try to really make sure that each side of the story was represented.
Speaker D:But I think it Served the outcome really well in that it wasn't just, yeah, I did all this research, and here it is.
Speaker D:It.
Speaker D:Well, let's actually litigate this.
Speaker D:Let's.
Speaker D:Let's see what we can.
Speaker D:Can get to the bottom of by coming at these different perspectives.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:I didn't quite understand why there was all this contention between whether it's KYTRID or climate change.
Speaker C:And I was thinking, well, it's probably both.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:You know, and to be fair, I think, you know, I think a lot of, if not all of the folks on both sides of that would say the same thing in a.
Speaker D:Is that everybody is largely aware that we couldn't ascribe it to one particular thing.
Speaker D:So many people are so invested in, you know, this is their lives, in understanding the roles of these different aspects.
Speaker D:I talked to some folks who declined to be interviewed because it was such a painful period for them, trying to really just first off, convince anybody that something was happening to frogs and toads, and then from there to get anybody to care that something was happening to frogs and toads.
Speaker D:And that's even before we get to what the cause of it is.
Speaker D:So a lot of these people had been through the mud for years and years already trying to just get some level of attention to this.
Speaker D:And when you're fighting for publication or funding, getting the rug pulled out from under you is what it can be like in certain cases.
Speaker C:What would be the big takeaway that you'd want people to know from your.
Speaker A:Broader work and the story of the golden toad?
Speaker B:I think for me, it would be, it's a story about loss and grief and extinction, but it's also a story about hope and rediscovery.
Speaker B:We went through our personal journeys in that regard in the same way that we went through the more scientific, ecological side of things.
Speaker B:I hope people feel something for this species that may not be here anymore when they read this story, but I also hope it gives them hope and optimism and an appreciation for what we still have.
Speaker B:That is, to me, the main goal is to compel people to appreciate what's still here and experience it and share it with the people they love.
Speaker B:Kyle and I both had children right as we were finishing the first draft of this book.
Speaker B:And I think it really gave us a different perspective than we would have had otherwise.
Speaker B:And I was lucky enough to take my daughter to Monteverde in March, and she got to see blue morphos and cloud forests that hopefully will still be here when she's my age.
Speaker B:I'm really now turning a lot of my energy and focus into telling her those stories and showing her these environments that I've fallen in love with.
Speaker B:And I hope that this book compels people to do the same.
Speaker D:I would just add, I think the question of the golden toad's extinction is a really powerful one.
Speaker D:It's this unanswered question in a lot of ways, and it can be applied more broadly.
Speaker D:If we go out there and we find the golden toad, in some ways that's a triumph, but in some ways, I think it's just as triumphant to have the question remain open and have it be this unknown of we don't.
Speaker D:There are always going to be these unanswered questions, especially when we are looking at our own future and the future of our planet and its species.
Speaker D:And to be able to say, maybe let's live in this world where we know that this beautiful species existed, it might still be out there.
Speaker D:Let's live our lives and operate in a way that preserves the world for it.
Speaker D:If it's out there and if it's not in a way that it could come back or help the other species that are like it continue to exist.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker C:That's good.
Speaker C:I like that.
Speaker C:So, thanks, guys.
Speaker D:I appreciate you so much.
Speaker D:Tom, great talking to you.
Speaker C:Great talking to you too.
Speaker C:Thanks.
Speaker B:Thanks for a great comment.
Speaker C:Take care.
Speaker D:Take care.
Speaker C:Bye.
Speaker A:Between you and me, I hope that Trevor is right and that the golden toad is still out there in some damp, remote patch of ridgeline high in the Costa Rica mountains, beyond the reach of human intervention.
Speaker A:For now, it's a mystery and a lost species.
Speaker A:Check the show notes for more information on how you can support the children's eternal rainforest.
Speaker A:Explore more of Kyle and Trevor's work and order their highly recommended book, the Golden An Ecological Mystery in the Search for a Lost Species.
Speaker A:If you like what we're doing, please like and subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker A:You can also check donate a dollar or two to help keep us going.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on Global Warming is Real.
Speaker A:There's always more we can do to stop climate change.
Speaker C:No amount of engagement is too little.
Speaker A:And now more than ever, your involvement matters.
Speaker A:To learn more and do more, visit globalwarmingisreal.com thanks for listening.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Tom Schueneman.
Speaker A:We'll see you next time on Global Warming is Real.
Speaker A:Sam.
Speaker C:It.
