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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Robin McKie

Dominica’s mountain chicken frog faces disappearance in ‘fastest track to extinction ever recorded’

Closeup of a mountain chicken frog that is sick with chytridiomycosis.
A mountain chicken frog that is sick with chytridiomycosis. Photograph: ZSL

They were once so numerous they were cooked as the national dish of Dominica. Every year, thousands of mountain chicken frogs, roasted with garlic and pepper, were eaten by islanders and tourists.

Two decades later, the animal – one of the world’s largest species of frog – has in effect disappeared from the Caribbean island. A series of ecological disasters has reduced its former healthy, stable population of hundreds of thousands of animals to a total of 21 frogs, according to scientists’ most recent survey.

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