High in Ecuador’s cloudforests, Jaime Culebras is on a mission to save a rare and lonely frog
BySTEVE GREENWOOD
For the past four years I’ve been making the final episode of Planet Earth III. It’s called Heroes, and while the other episodes are all about wildlife, mine tells the stories of six remarkable people who are spending – and even risking – their lives to save the species and habitats they love.
I was very keen that one of my stories was about frogs. They comprise the most endangered group of animals on the planet, yet somehow it seemed to me that they never get the attention they deserve. That is how I came to meet and film the remarkable Jaime Culebras.
Jaime is a Spanish wildlife photographer and conservationist, but spends most of his time in his beloved Ecuador. He leads tours into the deepest forest, where his talent for finding wildlife that everyone else misses is nothing short of miraculous. Though he loves all wildlife, frogs are particularly close to his heart.
“I love frogs! I fell in love with them when I was seven,” he told me when I first met him. “Their colours, their incredible eyes, how they move and their incredible way of life. How can you not love them?”
Jaime was more than willing to share his expertise for Planet Earth III. When filming started in February 2021, we met in Centro Jambatu, a research centre in Quito that is packed with the rarest frog species in the country. As frog populations crashed around the world – particularly in South and Central America – Centro Jambatu took in some of the last surviving individuals with the aim of safeguarding them in the short term, and creating breeding programmes so they can be returned to the wild in the future.
The team has spent years creating the perfect conditions for mating, and the centre’s various rooms were full of the croaks and calls of male frogs looking for females. As I peered into the tanks, I noticed many of the frogs were in ‘amplexus’, with hopeful males clinging to the backs of the females. I felt that I should avert my eyes.
But not every frog had a partner. Jaime showed me a tank in which a frog sat all alone. “This is Sad Santiago,” he said. “He’s been on his own for four long years, waiting for a female.”
Santiago is a type of harlequin frog. It’s one of 99 species in the genus Atelopus, which are found
