Panama - Expedition Team Out of Reach

Panamanian Golden Frog
Photo Credit: Joel Sartore

With the Amphibian Rescue team out of ear shot without cell service in the middle of the Panamanian rainforest (go figure!), we here back at the Zoo can only go by the written schedule we’ve been given on their comings and goings.

This is Day Three of the efforts to collect frogs around the Cerro Brewster camp, swab them for chytrid fungus and put them in safe keeping for the trip back to Panama City and the Summit Zoo. We haven’t spoken much about where our team is staying while on the mountainous slopes around Cerro Brewster.

There is a structure there, the empty work house, where all of the partners on the mission can store their gear and keep the equipment needed to go out “a-froggin’” in the evening hours. Our team plans to string hammocks up outside and sleep (when they can steal a few winks during the day), swinging above the porch. We are all anxious to see photographic evidence of this, if anyone is awake long enough to snap a few shots. We will see at the end of the week when news, photographs and video start trickling back to us from our re-connected team. Stay tuned for that.

These photos of the work house at Cerro Brewster were taken in July of this year, right after a reconstruction project was completed.



In all likelihood, the Rescue Team will not be seeing the national symbol of Panama in the forests around Cerro Brewster, the Panamanian Golden Frog. As our partner in Panama with us from National Zoo, Brian Gratwicke writes:

“If we keep an open eye in Panama and we might just see a Panamanian Golden Frog. Local legend used to promise luck to anyone who spotted the frog in the wild and that when the frog died, it would turn into a gold talisman, known as a huaca. Nowadays, you’ll see the frogs on decorative cloth molas made by the Kuna Indians, on T-shirts, as inlaid design on a new overpass in Panama City and even on lottery tickets. In the market at El Valle de Antòn, you will see them by the thousands either as enamel-painted terracotta or on hand-carved tagua nuts. The one place you probably won’t see a Panamanian Golden Frog, however, is in their native home—the crystal clear streams of the ancient volcanic crater of El Valle de Antòn. In the mountain forests you may spot other similar-looking extant species such as Atelopus varius, but the only local and true Panamanian Golden Frogs Atelopus zeteki are those breeding in captivity at the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center (EVACC) at the El Nispero Zoo.”

Tragic, but true.