Advanced examination of the global amphibian chytrid crisis, the probiotic and biocontrol interventions being developed, and the welfare of billions of individual amphibians affected by this disease.
The chytrid fungus crisis represents one of the most significant welfare catastrophes affecting any animal group globally. Billions of individual amphibians have died from chytridiomycosis — a disease that causes a physiologically distressing death through progressive osmotic failure. The scale of the welfare impact is difficult to comprehend: entire populations of hundreds of species have been killed within months of disease introduction. The welfare dimension extends beyond individual suffering to the loss of entire species lineages representing hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. Probiotic and biocontrol interventions that could reduce or prevent disease in wild populations represent high-priority welfare investments given the scale of suffering they could prevent.