Zoo released nearly 700,000 eggs, toads and spawn to save them

By Ben Barry

A zoo has released nearly 700,000 endangered toads and spawn into the wild - to save them from extinction.

On March 27, 690,957 endangered Houston toad eggs, tadpoles and toads were released into their native range on a designated release site in Bastrop County, Texas, by Fort Worth Zoo.

The Houston toad was one of the first amphibians to be listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1970 and it is believed there are fewer than 400 of them left in the wild.

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Each week, for six to eight weeks during toad-breeding season, the zoo's Houston toad team matches adult breeding pairs based on the their full-time reproductive physiologist's findings.

The toad will then, hopefully, lay a strand of eggs - with each strand containing between 4,000 and 10,000 eggs.

The team then counts every egg, carefully bags the egg strains and sends them down to the release site in Bastrop Count,y where they are placed in the pond within protective baskets. 

This year a total of 682,216 eggs, 8,677 tadpoles and 64 adult toads were released from the Fort Worth Zoo's facility.