A Toad-ally Awesome Project: PUERTO RICAN TOAD STARS IN MANHATTAN PROGRAM

摘要

AS HOLIDAY SHOPPERS FILLED THEIR BAGS on nearby Fifth Avenue last December, Bruce Foster, the Central Park Zoo's collection manager, prepared a different sort of bag. Foster's package, to be sent by special delivery to the Caribbean, ballooned with gallons of freshwater and 500 tadpoles. The zoo hopes the contents will help ensure a future for the threatened Puerto Rican crested toad. "I've wanted the crested toad to be [at the zoo] for a long, long time because of the unique location and the large Puerto Rican population in New York City," he says. Yet, with only a few hundred toads remaining in remote locations on Puerto Rico, the average islander has never seen one in the wild. But with the opening of Central Park Zoo's new Global Amphibian Crisis exhibit, starring the Puerto Rican crested toad, people can now become more familiar with them.