The Buffalo Zoo is proud to once again play its part in the species survival of the Puerto Rican crested toad by sending tadpoles to Puerto Rico this week for reintroduction into the wild!

While every shipment of tadpoles is incredibly important to save this endangered species, this one had some extra notability thanks to Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny.

In a short film shared by Bad Bunny earlier this year that accompanied his album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, an animated Puerto Rican crested toad named Concho is featured as a character. As the animated toad’s popularity grew, so did awareness for and efforts to save its species.

The short film, which has 21 million views on YouTube, helped ramp up donations to the Puerto Rican Crested Toad Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that the Buffalo Zoo works with in its joint mission to save the species. The conservancy recently announced the construction of a new research and breeding facility, with work set to begin in 2025.

The Zoo oversaw breeding Puerto Rican crested toads that produced over 1,500 tadpoles, which were sent to the conservancy in Puerto Rico in June. The tadpoles will be acclimated in man-made ponds and monitored until they metamorphose and disperse. Currently, there are four reintroduction sites on the Caribbean island that are located in historical habitat and separated from the last remaining wild population.

Thanks to the work of the PRCTC and its partners, over 830,000 tadpoles have been released in Puerto Rico. The toad’s wild population has fluctuated between 300 and 3,000 over the past 35 years, though the species is difficult to monitor due to its fossorial lifestyle.

The Puerto Rican crested toad (PRCT) became the first amphibian Species Survival Plan (SSP) program under the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in 1984. That same year Buffalo Zoo won the AZA Edward H. Bean award for discovering the husbandry needed to care for and breed the species to allow for reintroductions to the wild to even be possible.  The PRCT SSP program evolved to become the Puerto Rican Crested Toad Conservancy in 2021 a separate 501(c)3 organization that partners with 18 AZA institutions to continue reintroduction efforts with the goal of creating a stable wild population.