Chytridiomycosis caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis has driven the most severe disease-caused vertebrate extinction event in recorded history. Understanding this welfare crisis informs conservation priorities.
Chytridiomycosis causes a prolonged, agonizing death in amphibians - the progressive failure of skin function that underlies amphibian physiology leads to electrolyte disruption and ultimately cardiac arrest over days to weeks. Multiplied across hundreds of species and populations, this represents welfare harm at an almost incomprehensible scale. The global amphibian extinction crisis driven by Bd is also an ongoing welfare emergency - animals are suffering and dying in wild populations across the world. Ex situ conservation programs that rescue and breed threatened species in disease-free captive environments protect both the long-term survival of species and prevent the welfare harms of infection in wild populations.