You may not have heard about 'Bsal' before, but it nearly wiped out a population of salamanders in Europe, and scientists worry it could invade the United States--the home of the world's greatest diversity of salamanders--next.
Is the U.S. ready for Bsal, and can a pandemic in this global salamander hotspot be prevented, unlike the one that's currently crippling human societies globally? What's being done, and what would it mean to lose salamanders on a landscape-wide level in North America?
This inaugural season of Mongabay Explores, originally published in 2020 just at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, tackles these important questions.
Made possible by our Patreon supporters, this six-part season will dive into a reporting project our writers and editors produced on the topic to learn what's known about this issue now.
More reading from Mongabay on this topic:
- On the hunt for a silent salamander-killerScientists are racing to stop a pandemic before it starts – but will they find it in time?
- Mongabay's whole series on Bsal is here
- United States Bsal Task Force website
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