Fort Worth Zoo Welcomes IVF Puerto Rican Crested Toad Named 'Olaf'
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - The Fort Worth Zoo and Mississippi State University have successfully hatched a toad via in-vitro fertilization utilizing frozen semen collected from the wild.
His name is Olaf, and he's a Puerto Rican crested toad.
The Fort Worth Zoo and its partners from Mississippi State University came together this summer to continue their efforts with assisted reproduction technology (ART) for critically endangered amphibians. For the first time ever, they were able to successfully conduct IVF using the eggs from two Zoo females and frozen semen from six wild males.
The Zoo said their efforts are a significant advancement for the critically endangered species as it will allow zoos, researchers and other conservationists to expand their population genetics used to increase the overall population while keeping the toads in their wild, natural habitat. These ART efforts will help maintain a genetically diverse, self-sustaining population of toads in the managed population without removing animals from the wild.
Since 2006, Zoo staff has coordinated and managed a Puerto Rican Crested Toad conservation program, under the direction of Fort Worth Zoo Curator of Ectotherms Diane Barber. Through this cooperative program, thousands of Puerto Rican crested toad tadpoles are released into the wild each year.
As the longest continuous reintroduction program for any amphibian species, the Puerto Rican crested toad project has released more than 510,000 tadpoles at six reintroduction sites since 1992 – the Fort Worth Zoo alone has released 70,988 of those tadpoles.
