Frogs under the genus Rana, already threatened and included in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, cannot at all be used in dissection and experiments.
Noted environmentalist and conservationist with Department of Environmental Biology, University of Delhi, S D Biju, hailed the decision to ban the use of wild animals, especially amphibians, for routine classroom teaching.
“There are a lot of modern ways to teach internal anatomy of animals using models that are now very common in many countries,” Biju told PTI.
Amphibians are the most threatened animals not only in India but all over the world. Almost 60 percentage of amphibians are facing extinction because of various reasons, mostly habitat destruction and alteration, he said.
In India, thousands of frogs are being collected from the wild every day for classroom dissection.”Frog dissections are unethical and unnecessary.They contribute to the depletion of wild frog populations and the spread of harmful invasive species and infectious diseases,” he said.
“Frogs are an important part of the ecosystem. Maintaining the food chain, environmental health and pest control are among their many direct and indirect benefits to the world,” he added.
The NBC report also expressed serious concern over the threat of extinction faced by marine turtles mainly due to degradation of nesting sites along Kerala coast.
The report identified beach erosion caused by sand mining and coastal afforestation as major causes for the destruction of nesting sites of turtles.
Building awareness on marine turtle conservation, enforcing regulations against illegal sale and consumption of turtle meat and eggs, and better vigilance for beach sand mining and illegal trawling are needed to conserve marine biodiversity, it said.
