Chapter one - Waleska Reyes

Chapter one - Waleska Reyes

The first chapter of Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction”, starts off with a description of a Town in Panama called El Valle De Anton, which is in the center of a volcanic crater. The author, Kolbert, discusses that in the market of El Valle there are numerous amounts of golden-frog figurines. The golden frogs are found all over El Valle and are yellow with brown spots. It is also interesting to note that they are poisonous. Kolbert highlights that the golden frogs were very present in El Valle. As a result, many were alarmed when they began disappearing.

Many attempts were made to preserve the golden frogs by raising a few indoor, but these attempts did not seem effective. Kolbert was so intrigued by the occurrence she decided to visit The El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center (EVACC). Amongst many other frogs, Kolbert found a few dozen tanks of golden frogs. EVACC is described as a place in the middle of nowhere and therefore isolated from the rest of the world. Kolbert describes to the extent to which the golden frogs are being protected. Kolbert meets the director of EVACC, Edgardo Griffith, an individual who had devoted his entire life to amphibians. Griffith notes that golden frogs are not the only frogs disappearing, “we are losing all these amphibians before we even know that they exist” (pg. 10)  Griffith states. This quote made me question why it is that they are disappearing? Because when I think of destruction for the environment or any wildlife I think of humans. So are we killing off these species without knowing or is there something else out there?

Later on, Kolbert reveals that a fungus from chytrids, Bd for short, was what was killing the golden frogs. How do you get rid of a fungus that infects an entire rainforest? The answer is you can’t. The most daunting part is this fungus is spreading all over the world. After reading this passage I connected it most with the theme that science is a way of learning more about the world due to the fact that as previously stated there is so much we don’t know. Science allows us to investigate and ask the important questions we saw in this chapter.

Here is a video from a Quinoa farm/factory in Ecuador: