Zoo amphibian collections face significant disease challenges including chytridiomycosis, ranavirus, and other pathogens that threaten both individual animals and conservation breeding programs.
Amphibian disease management in zoos represents a welfare challenge with conservation implications - collections that fail biosecurity protocols may lose irreplaceable individuals and endanger breeding programs. Individual welfare costs of disease are significant: chytridiomycosis causes severe disruption of electrolyte balance through impaired skin function, leading to cardiac arrest. The welfare of affected animals includes the acute suffering of disease progression and the intensive treatment required for attempted recovery. Biosecurity measures that prevent disease introduction - quarantine, testing, restricted access - impose some welfare costs through handling and isolation but protect against far greater suffering from disease outbreaks. The conservation imperative adds urgency to welfare management that might seem disproportionate for non-threatened species.