Three out of the top 20 species from that list are found, or were found in Cajamarca.

There are more than an estimated 1.5 million species of fungi in Perú alone.

The destruction of the mine and the evident commitment towards habitat reconstruction from them barely canceled each other out, but it gave me hopes.

That is what the world is slowly experiencing at night; silence, and an uncomfortable one.

They tear down a mountain and literally move it to a new location, stacking the gold containing rocks in terraces that look like giant Mayan pyramids.

The people I am here with, Dr Antonio Salas and Alfonso Miranda, have witnessed the mass extinction of frogs first hand.

Local people joined us and you could see their skepticism. The locals wanted to be sure that we were doing the survey and gathering truthful data, with local permits.

This course will take place in three different field stations through out the Peruvian Amazon, from the mid-elevation Cusco Amazónico, to the low land forests of Manú and Madre de Dios.

The Huachipa Zoo serves as a refuge and rehabilitation center for the many rescued animals that the authorities confiscate from people who keep them illegally as pets or intend to sell to others.

Local folks collect this frog to sell in local markets. It is eaten in soup or drank in “frog juice”, a very unappealing and inhumane drink made of ground frog, maca root and honey.

As we proceed to evaluate more endangered amphibians, it becomes clear that many of these species have simply disappeared.

We started the painstaking task of evaluating the conservation status and feasibility for captive breeding programs of the more than 81 endangered species of frogs found in Perú.

I arrived at Lima at 1:20 and was promptly ushered through customs.

It should be noted that this is one of the few zoos that, besides having free roaming peacocks, also has free roaming 6-foot long iguanas.

It was an exciting feeling to go to Puerto Rico as a curator from the Philadelphia Zoo.

I am writing a blog about my travels through South America as Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles of the Philadelphia Zoo; you might call it a “frog blog”.