Monday, 1st December 2008
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Leap into the New Year at Bristol Zoo Gardens!
Keepers, staff and visitors to Bristol Zoo Gardens will be welcoming 2008 with a bounce this New Year's Eve.
A mass leap frog will be staged at the Zoo at 11am on December 31 to mark the start of the New Year and next year's fundraising campaign, 'The Year of the Frog'.
The people of Bristol are being encouraged to come and join the fun and help get 2008, which is a leap year, off to a great start.
Bristol Zoo is one of dozens of zoos across the world which will be taking part in the global leapfrog. The event, organised by the Amphibian Ark, will start in Auckland, New Zealand, taking in zoos in Perth, Singapore, London and Toronto among others, and will finally finishing in California.
It has been organised to help raise awareness of the extinction threat facing amphibian species all over the world.
Bristol Zoo director, Dr Jo Gipps said: "As the New Year moves across the globe from East to West, a wave of staged leapfrog events will take place at 11am New Year's Eve local time at zoos and aquariums across the world. It will be a great event - one giant leap for mankind... one more step to save frogs!"
Amphibian Ark's 2008 Year of the Frog is a global campaign to raise awareness of the amphibian crisis. In 2004, the Global Amphibian Assessment found that up to half of amphibian species could be wiped out in coming years through habitat loss and climate change - the biggest mass extinction since the dinosaurs disappeared.
The Amphibian Ark is an initiative started by a group of concerned conservation organizations in response to this crisis. The amphibian campaign will see priority amphibian species taken into dedicated facilities at zoos, aquariums, and other institutions around the world for safekeeping and breeding. The creatures will be released back into the wild when the original threats have been controlled.
The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) which is supporting the campaign, has appointed world renowned British naturalist David Attenborough as patron of the Year of the Frog.
He said: "Without an immediate and sustained conservation effort to support captive management, hundreds of species of these wonderful creatures could become extinct in our own lifetime. But implementation calls for financial and political support from all parts of the world."
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