In a bold effort to save one of the world’s rarest amphibians from extinction, one hundred Kihansi spray toads have been flown home to Tanzania after being painstakingly reared at the Bronx Zoo and The Toledo Zoo working in close partnership with the Tanzanian government and the World Bank.

The toads now reside at a new, state-of the-art propagation center in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capitol, with the eventual goal of reintroducing the tiny amphibians into their former habitat.

“On behalf of the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, we are very grateful to the Bronx Zoo and The Toledo Zoo for taking care of these precious toads (KST) for ten years, and now they have safely arrived home via KLM flight and all 100 toads are cheerful as witnessed by our Tanzanian trained KST keepers at the facility at UDSM Zoology Department. We are very optimistic that they will acclimatize soon and be taken to their homeland in Kihansi Gorge in the near future,” said Anna Maembe on behalf of the Government of Tanzania.