By 2020 / 2024 CLP Winner, Francis Osei-Gyan (Herp-Conservation Ghana)
Project leader Francis Osei-Gyan © Herp Ghana
“The intermediate puddle frog is incredibly special. It belongs to a group that diverged from all other living amphibians about 90 million years ago, meaning it is as distantly related to other frogs as humans are to squirrels.
It is currently known only to occur within one site in the whole world: the Ankasa Conservation Area in southwestern Ghana (a site with huge global conservation importance) where it has an extremely limited extent of occurrence estimated at just 48 km².
The IUCN Red List classifies this frog as Critically Endangered, mainly due to the decline in its forest habitat through the illegal extraction of raffia palm by surrounding communities (many who live below the poverty line).
The species is so rare that, despite being described for the first time in 2009, it had remained undetected for 12 years – until its rediscovery by our CLP-supported team in 2021.
Field work searching for the Critically Endangered intermediate puddle frog © Herp Ghana
This project recorded, for the first time, a male individual (previously, the species had only been known from two adult females and one juvenile).
We also identified several new localities where the species occur within the Ankasa National Park that were previously unknown, and developed the first habitat suitability map for the intermediate puddle frog.
Finally, our team increased conservation awareness, community support and interest in the species through the community outreach we conducted.
The project tram’s house to house community outreach work © Herp Ghana
We learned many lessons, but one will always stay with me: that teamwork and regular team discussions helped us stay informed and motivated. This proved to be key to our project’s success.
We also learnt that including and providing opportunities for local people and stakeholders to take part and be responsible in our efforts achieved collective and enduring results that everyone can be proud of.”
Read the Final Report here: https://www.conservationleadershipprogramme.org/project/saving-the-critically-endangered-intermediate-puddle-frog-in-ghana/
Congratulations to the whole project team: The project team included Francis Osei-Gyan (Team Leader), Bernard Eshun (Species Survey Leader), Susana Akwele Aryeetey (Conservation Education Campaigns Leader), and Angelina Osei Asor (Behavior Change Programs Leader).