The Post's recently seated environmental reporter, Juliet Eilperin, has been getting plenty of ink, and in this story on A3 she reports that "as many as 122 species have disappeared since 1980, and 1,900 are in danger of becoming extinct." She attributes "a precipitous decline across the globe" of amphibians including frogs, toads, and salamanders based on a global survey. She characterizes the drop as "the equivalent of tens of thousands of years' worth of extinctions in just a century," the result of deforestation, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. The researchers from Conservation International, an environmental group, say the declines tell "a disturbing tale of broad environmental degradation that may ultimately threaten humans and other animals, as well," with the amphibians in effect being "the canaries in the coal mine" harbingers. Most of the risks to amphibians in the U.S., Eilperin reports, are a result of habitat destruction. Among possible remedies, she quotes a Conservation International science advisor as pointing to the creation of parks and ecological reserves, cutting climate change emissions, and breeding animals in captivity to help sustain species that are vulnerable.