MORE than $100,000 from the ACT Government will be used to save the Northern Corroboree frog from extinction.

The $101,000 investment, part of the 2012-13 ACT Budget, will go towards a captive breeding program for the endangered species. To-date, the program, which started in 2003, has been funded by the Federal Government however that funding is to stop this month.

“Surveys in the 1980s showed there were many thousands of Northern Corroboree frogs in Namadgi National Park,” Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development Simon Corbell said.

“Now it is estimated that there are only very few remaining in the wild in the ACT, largely as the result of an introduced disease.

“This funding will provide the necessary money to the captive breeding program to protect these important frogs so they can continue to play their part to the ACT ecosystem.

“With Commonwealth funding due to cease in June 2012, funding by the ACT Government is vital towards continuing this program as a way to boost wild populations and as a precaution in the event that wild populations become extinct.”

Corbell said the program will receive $24,000 in 2012-13, with the remainder spread over the subsequent three years to 2015-16.”

The captive colony is housed in purpose-fitted shipping containers that serve as a bio-secure (disease quarantine) facility at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.