Rescuing the mountain chicken: 04/04/09

Another morning of computer work, discussions and planning and a visit from one of our guides, Mapai – a real character who is always ready for a beer or two never mind what time of day or what he has planned! Full of chat and jokes, he cares passionately about the wildlife of this island. He was happy to join us for lunch although as a hunter and big meat eater, he was a little suspicious of the vegetarian food in front of him!

After lunch we headed down to the transit facility to check on our frogs in their new temporary surroundings. All was well and they each received a treatment bath and some fresh water in their ponds. As we left, we heard them calling again so they must be feeling quite comfortable in their strange new world.

One of the big problems now is to find enough food for them all – that will be Gerardo’s challenge tonight and he has spent the last couple of days brewing up a concoction of guiness and sugar to spread over some towels to hang in the trees in the hope of attracting some bugs to the sweet smell tonight.

Leaving the frogs in peace, we headed out to check out two other spots where Gerardo had found frogs in the past – Cedar Wood and Sweetwater. These were absolutely bone dry – drier than he had ever seen it before and there were no frogs anywhere to be seen in either place. We did however spot a couple of cane toads, which we brought back with us for sampling.

There was just time for a quick sandwich before Javier, Andrew Cunningham and I left for a trip to Pelican, leaving Gerardo to set up various bug traps using an assortment of methods of attraction and in different spots all over the garden.

This time we started our trek into the forest at the very bottom of Pelican, hoping to find more frogs further down where we had had reports of several ponds still with water in. However we found nothing until just below the start of the transect and then only a couple of animals.

We continued all the way to the top, swabbing and treating any recaptures we came across, leaving the three animals that were new untreated, to act as controls for this treatment in the wild.

Andrew was pleased to find a live but very sick frog from which he could take skin sloughs to analyse in the hope of finding out more about this chytrid fungus. It is important to take these samples from a live animal as once it is dead the bacteria that begin to grow will actually kill off the chytrid so the samples will be of no use for culture.

Returning home, we found that Gerardo had not had a great deal of success with finding frog food in the garden here – it is just too exposed and windy so he plans to move the bug traps into the forest tomorrow – first though we will need to find a portable generator to power the lights to attract the bugs.