If the agency determines the three closely related amphibians, the Shasta salamander, Samwel Shasta salamander and Wintu Shasta salamander are threatened with extinction the bureau would have to find a way to raise the dam without harming the 4-inch amphibians.
The frogs travel in a box, within a canister, surrounded by snow, tucked tightly into a backpack strapped to a determined ecologist. Twenty at a time they depart places where they’re thriving for sites from which their species has vanished. Their mission: population recovery.
Ecologist Roland Knapp of the University of California, Santa Barbara has been leading a team of field crews—in collaboration with the National Park Service, US Geological Survey, and US Fish & Wildlife Service—to save these frogs by reintroducing them to lakes from which they have disappeared due to the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd).
https://www.futurity.org/sierra-nevada-yellow-legged-frog-1927952-2/
Cats have been introduced to an estimated 10,000 (5 percent) of Earth’s islands. Felix Medina’s meta-analysis of the feline impact on island biodiversity concluded cats have caused a population decline, reduction in geographic distribution, or extinctions of 175 species of reptiles, birds, and mammals.
https://www.islandconservation.org/cat-wars-devastating-consequences-cuddly-killer/
A trio of tiny salamander species could mean big trouble for federal officials spearheading a controversial $1.4-billion public works project to heighten the Shasta Dam in Northern California.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-shasta-dam-lawsuit-20181207-story.html
