Earth Protect Blog

The Denver Zoo quietly has shifted its mission from displaying captive threatened animals to working worldwide for species survival.

The latest project: sending out zookeeper biologists to save the Lake Titicaca giant frog.

This fabled underwater frog (Telmatobius culeus) lives only in that windblown lake, at 12,500 feet elevation, on the Bolivia-Peru border. A fad — grinding up the frogs in blenders for invigorating "frog shakes" — has decimated the species.

A 10-member zoo team will launch a breeding operation next week at a newly established lab in Peru to create an "insurance population" of frogs to forestall extinction. Team leaders say they'll also develop a strategy, with South American