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Headline: RAW VIDEO: Zoo experts and Nuns join forces to microchip critically endangered Mexican salamanders
Caption: Zoo experts, nuns and academics have teamed up to ID-chip critically endangered Mexican salamanders. Eighty rare achoque salamanders in Mexico and the UK were implanted with tiny ID chips to check whether the microchips, which are roughly the size of a grain of rice, would stay in place if used on the dwindling wild population. They devised a specific implantation method to make putting the chips in place as stress-free and safe as possible. The process was led by Adam Bland, Assistant Team Manager for Amphibians at Chester Zoo, whose study was published with colleague Dr Gerardo Garcia and coauthors Dr Omar Dominguez, Dr Rodolfo Perez and Dr Richard Preziosi in JZAR journal recently. Thirteen of the salamanders in the study lived behind the scenes at Chester Zoo, while 26 came from the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Pesqueras Patzcuaro and another 13 are cared for at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. A colony of achoques in the care of Dominican nuns at the Monasterio de la Virgen Inmaculada de la Salud provided 28 of the animals used in the study. Adam said: “We chipped 80 Ambystoma dumerilii to make sure the method would work for wild achoques. We were chipping them with the nuns watching protectively. It’s a real demonstration of how anyone can be involved in conservation. People from all different backgrounds are working to save this species.” There may be fewer than 150 adult achoques left in their natural habitat, Lake Pátzcuaro in the state of Michoacán, Mexico. The nuns care for hundreds of salamanders living in tanks in the monastery. Traditionally, achoque are used to create cough medicine, but when their numbers drastically dropped in the 1980s, the Sisters started breeding them, in the process creating a lifeline for the species. Meanwhile, Mexican and UK conservationists are working with local communities to protect achoque eggs, breeding more salamander insurance populations at places like Chester Zoo, engaging in environmental restoration work and undertaking genetic testing to ensure the species remains diverse enough to survive into the future. The microchips will enable conservationists to identify individual wild-living salamanders during catch-and-release checks, and to access their data, including sex, health and approximate age, with a quick scan. This will also help inform conservationists how many salamanders still remain in the wild. Adam said: “Achoques are very difficult, perhaps impossible, to tell apart by sight alone. Working with the vets at Chester Zoo, we developed a way to quickly place a microchip under their skin, but we needed to make sure it will stay in place and have no negative effects on the salamander. “Because of their aquatic lifestyle and unique regenerative biology, amphibians and salamanders in particular cannot always easily be tagged, ringed or marked. Microchips offer an alternative, but because of that same weird biology, amphibian species have been known to absorb microchips into their body and excrete them or push them back out through their permeable skin over time. Every species is unique and marking techniques for amphibians often have to be species-specific. It's also crucial that the process doesn’t affect the animals’ health.” The study checked back in with the achoques 20 days after the chips were implanted and monitored their behaviour for the next four months. No major changes were reported; the chips stayed in place and the study found they caused no long-term health impacts on the 80 salamanders. Achoque, like axolotls, are neotenic amphibians. This means they retain characteristics associated with an early stage of development, keeping their tadpole-like tails, external gills and remaining fully aquatic. Adam said: “Many of these species are unique. There aren’t many endemic neotenic species, and the achoque conservation and protection work carried out by these organisations and partnerships is worthwhile and based on solid science. “Getting people interested in a salamander that lives 12m down in the mud at the bottom of a lake is difficult, but they really are interesting and have a lot of cultural value to local communities. There’s a real chance of having a positive conservation impact for achoques and other misunderstood species.” Paul Bamford, Regional Field Programme Senior Manager for Latin America at the zoo, is working with multiple organisations to coordinate achoque conservation efforts. Paul said: “Freshwater ecosystems in general are important both for human wellbeing and for biodiversity. Central Mexico is a zone where local communities and unique animals depend on freshwater environments like Lake Patzcuaro. “Lake Patzcuaro sits in an endorheic drainage basin, which means that it doesn’t have an outflow. When pollutants flow into the lake, they stay there. The water level is dropping because of climate change, so the contaminants are becoming more concentrated. Amphibians are indicator species: they have permeable skin, so any toxins in the environment are likely to have a rapid negative impact on their wellbeing; their survival depends on good water quality. By monitoring and protecting achoque, we’re also protecting the lake.” Conservationists now plan to catch and chip the remaining wild achoques so that their health and numbers can be reliably monitored.
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