Two weeks ago, Como Zoo workers packaged up 4,002 Wyoming toad tadpoles and sent them off, via FedEx overnight, to be released in the wilds of Wyoming.
They arrived in good condition.
Como is one of 10 institutions in a national breeding program to preserve the toad, which was placed on the endangered list in the 1980s and once was thought to be extinct.
I’ve been going to the Como Zoo for 50 years and writing about it for 30, but today is the first time I’d ever heard about their Wyoming toads.
But, according to Zookeeper Bree Barney, there is a bedroom-sized lab, in the bowels of Como’s new Visitors Center, where 30 adults toads are kept in aquariums that provide water and land space.
To get into the bio-secure room, you have to wear gloves and boots, then pass through the controlled vestibule into the airflow-controlled lab.
For the past three years, Barney and the Como team have bred two or three adult toad pairs, chosen by the national matchmaking program based on genetic data.
The tadpoles develop from the thousands of eggs produced, and then they’re sent in oxygenated water to be released in the Mortenson Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Laramie, Wyo.
This is the third year that Como has sent tadpoles out west; the number has increased each year, from 2,000 to 3,000 to 4,002. They were authorized to breed a third pair this year, up from two pairs the years before. And they’re getting better at this animal husbandry each year.
Barney, who’s been a zookeeper for 10 years and at Como for seven years, looks in on the toads every day. That’s just part of her job, though, she also keeps busy working with birds, fish, other amphibians, small animals and, when needed, with primates in the new gorilla habitat.
She said they don’t name the toads, who have numbers, photo IDs and implanted microchips to tell them apart.
“And each toad’s wart pattern is different, like a fingerprint,” Barney said.
The adult toads weigh 30 to 45 grams, she said, which meant nothing to me. “They’re about half the size an adult’s palm,” she said. Ah, now I get it.
“Most people probably couldn’t tell the difference between the Wyoming toad and the American toad [which is widely found in Minnesota],” she said.
There are 550 Wyoming toads in captivity around the country, including the 30 at Como. And now eggs have now been found in the Wyoming wild, which is good news for the species. But they’re still under much stress, particularly with recent flooding and forest fires in the area.
“But it’s such good news that they’ve found a breeding population there,” Barney said.
Next week, she’ll travel to Wyoming for a week of hands-on research and a conference with other researchers to update the Wyoming toad’s Species Survival Plan.
Como has other conservation program that zoo visitors don’t often see. In one case, zookeeper Megan Elder is the orangutan stud keeper for the entire world.
“She determines which orangutan goes where for breeding purposes,” said Como’s Matt Reinartz. “She’s the go-to person for zoos around the world and travels regularly to Borneo for research.
Said Michelle Furrer, Como Campus Director:
“Since these projects usually go on behind the scenes, people are often surprised to hear how involved Como Zoo is in species preservation. But Como Zoo, along with many other zoos, are always striving to make a difference in conservation.”
