The Croak #9 - The Story behind the Red List

Have you ever wondered what it means for a species to be Vulnerable, or Critically Endangered?

Why is a species considered ‘threatened’, and what’s threatening it? It’s easy to see a species listed with one of these categories, like Endangered, and assume it’s just a label, but behind that label is a mountain of data, expert input, and urgency. For each and every species, there is a classification telling us how urgently we need to be working to conserve it. This can range from Least Concern, where minimal, if any, interventions are needed, to the threatened categories: Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered, where the threat of extinction is a real possibility and action is needed. These categories tell conservation workers and funders where to direct their efforts, and so the process behind how species get categorized needs to be detailed and stringent. It has been an eye-opening experience contributing to this as an intern at Anura Africa.

One of my key responsibilities is to facilitate the publication process that determines a species’ IUCN Red List category. This involves reviewing reports submitted by species experts and uploading a range of data onto SIS (the IUCN Species Information Service central database), such as where the species is found and how common it is, if the population is growing or shrinking, what threats the species faces, and what conservation actions are in place or still needed. Once uploaded, a representative from the IUCN reviews the assessment and the threat status can officially be published on the IUCN Red List, ready to guide conservation priorities and policy decisions. At Anura Africa, we’re part the team responsible for handling not only the 135 amphibian species found in South Africa, but the assessments for all 322 species for the southern African region. This includes Lesotho, eSwatini, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Angola, and Zambia.

IUCN Red List categories from before species are evaluated, through non-threatened categories such as Least Concern (LC) and Near Threatened (NT), to the threatened and extinct categories.

Despite completing my undergraduate and honours degrees in Biodiversity and Ecology at Stellenbosch University, it wasn’t until my master’s course that I started to truly notice amphibians. My thesis involved looking at the phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary vulnerability of South Africa’s herpetofauna, where I identified regions of South Africa that are rich in both threatened and genetically irreplaceable species. Reptiles and amphibians had always been a curiosity to me, but through studying them and contributing to the Red List assessments, I came to understand the scale of their plight.

These critters are under increasing pressure from widespread habitat degradation. Invasive alien species disrupt natural water cycles and can drastically alter fire regimes. This is particularly damaging in the Cape, where amongst the fynbos many amphibians have adapted to predictable patterns of fire disturbance. Meanwhile, land-use change for agriculture, forestry plantations, and urban expansion continues to fragment their habitats. Moreover, climate change brings the constant risk of prolonged drought. Understanding these threats has motivated me to go beyond the written reports and seek out firsthand experiences. I wanted to see what is actually going on behind the writing.

One such opportunity I had during my studies was to assist with the monitoring program for Rose’s Mountain Toadlet, a Critically Endangered species found nowhere else in the world except for the Peninsula of the southwestern Cape. This program let me connect these animals I’ve read about in from articles and IUCN listings to the actual threatened, range-restricted frogs in their natural, and highly reduced, habitat. This species is only one of the many endemic, and threatened, frogs of the Cape. Having grown up in the Cape region, I feel connected to this corner of the world. After finishing my master’s qualification, I plan on staying in herpetology and moving away from academia into a conservation-focused career. There is so much conservation work that needs to be done here, so I would love to initiate or support projects with direct positive impacts.

A juvenile mountain toadlet from the Western Cape mountains that was found during the amphibian population monitoring program, near the breeding aggregation pools.

As I work towards compiling data and Red List designations, I’ve come to appreciate that conservation needs to employ theoretical research, as well as policy and action. I am still at the beginning of my scientific career, but I’m excited to be part of a community working to secure a future for southern African amphibians. These species may be cryptic, small, and hard to find, but their stories need to be told.