Cure for Frog Killing Fungus?

  • A solution may have been discovered to save frogs from the chytrid fungus (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Frogs are in trouble. A nasty disease caused by a fungus is wiping out frogs around the world. But researchers might have found a solution. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Frogs are in trouble. A nasty disease caused by a fungus is wiping out frogs around the world. But researchers might have found a solution. Rebecca Williams has more:

A disease caused by something called chytrid fungus is sweeping through frogs. When the disease moves through a frog population it can wipe out 80% of the entire population. Scientists have been rushing to find something that might help.

Reid Harris is a biologist at James Madison University. He says he’s discovered there are friendly bacteria that live on some types of frogs. And they can kill the fungus.

“It does seem like the pathogen moves in this predictable wave, so you might be able to get out in front of that wave sort of like a fire line.”

Harris says it might be possible to give wild frogs extra doses of the bacteria to fight off the fungus. But first they have to make sure there won’t be side effects.

For The Environment Report I’m Rebecca Williams.

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