Another little extract from Into the Fire" - the book I'm writing about living in Costa Rica.
Anita wanted to be a vet, but her love of animals only extended to those that were warm and fuzzy. She would often relate, with great revulsion, the story of the latest critter that had strayed into her room. There was a scorpion, “this big,” Anita said, holding her hands about 15cm apart. Her host mother calmly disposed of the creature, which wasn’t harmful to humans. One day an emerald coloured frog made the mistake of hopping across the room. Anita panicked, and emptied a can of fly spray over it. I was horrified, and mourned the loss of its tiny webbed feet, but perhaps she just hastened its departure from a world no longer habitable for amphibious life forms.
A couple of decades earlier, in the nearby cloud forests, hundreds of golden toads appeared once a year. During mating season the bright orange amphibians gathered in shallow pools, like bright gems scattered on the forest floor. Because they lived both on land and in water, the toads were sensitive to changes in both environments. Their permeable skin also made them vulnerable. Ten years before Anita poisoned a frog in her room, the last golden toad quietly slipped away. It is probable that drier weather patterns drove the golden toads to extinction. Like the canaries that were taken into mines to detect fatal fumes, the silence of the golden toad brought a sobering warning. Global warming had claimed its first casualty.
Posted by Fionnaigh at November 23, 2003 07:14 AM