ZOO BRINGS IN 'SEX EXPERT' TO ENCOURAGE AMPHIBIANS MATING|兩棲動物面臨生存危機 底特律動物園致力保育

Experts estimate that around half of the world's 7,600 known species of amphibians is threatened and endangered. Detroit Zoo has bought in a "sex expert" to offer her sex-pertise. She's new to the job. But that's not stopping Dr. Ruth Marcec from getting up close and personal with her new friends at Detroit Zoo. As director of the National Amphibian Conservation Center, Marcec has been tasked with encouraging intimacy between creatures such as frogs and salamanders to make them mate more. ==DR RUTH MARCEC, Detroit Zoo== Amphibians are very important in conservation right now. They're suffering declines and we recognize that they need special attention. Experts estimate that around half of the world's 7,600 known species of amphibians are threatened and endangered--a level much more severe than that of mammals and birds. Amphibian larva serve to keep water clean, and salamanders are able to aerate soil. These are just some of the reasons why amphibian species should be conserved. ==DR RUTH MARCEC, Detroit Zoo== So they're very much overlooked. They're very important to the environment. If we didn't have amphibians, a lot of our ecosystems just wouldn't exist. To keep the amphibians feeling frisky, the reproduction expert rests a tablet computer playing tree-frog mating calls on top of the animals' storage tank. However, efforts to help amphibians find their mate and reproduce require much more than just playing songs of love. ==DR RUTH MARCEC, Detroit Zoo== Amphibians are very difficult to breed in captivity. You need to get the mood just right. They need some Marvin Gaye. No. They need specific barometric pressure. They need specific rainfall. Things like that. Marcec shares her success with the rest of the world. Puerto Rican crested toad tadpoles and critically endangered Wyoming toads bred at the zoo are shipped back to their natural habitats in the US. In a world where species are dying out at increasing rates, Marcec's acheivement certainly shines a new light of hope on consevation efforts worldwide. TRANSLATED BY：ARIEL HSIEH