Conservation grants to revive the Mahseer fish and Malabar tree toad

Context: The Habitats Trust awards conservation grants to revive the population of the iconic Mahseer fish and the Malabar tree toad.

The Malabar Tree Toad

• It spends all its life on trees.
• It is found only in the evergreen forests of the Western Ghats and nowhere else in the world.
• They can be sighted only when they descend to the ground at the beginning of the Southwest monsoon to breed in forest streams.
• This endangered species is found across Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• The threats to this species are the same as those faced by most endemic amphibians in India: deforestation, forest fragmentation, and changing weather patterns due to global climate change.
• An Android App, called ‘Frogwatch’, which allows easy documentation of amphibians in the frogwatch page (part of the India Biodiversity Portal). Users can upload their records of amphibians in the form of images, audio files, or lists

The Mahseer

• It is a large freshwater fish distributed in Indian rivers.
• Once an abundant game and food fish in India, it has now become endangered and with an extremely limited range.

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/the-habitats-trust-awards-conservation-grants-to-revive-the-iconic-mahseer-fish-and-the-malabar-tree-toad/article33364551.ece