Phil Bishop

Phil Bishop.

Phil has always had a keen interest in amphibians since a very early age, but growing up in the UK his interests were stifled by the low diversity of amphibians in Britain.

After completing a BSc (Hons) degree in Zoology at Cardiff (UK) he was keen to pursue a research career involving amphibians, but was again dissuaded by the head of department due to the depauperate nature of amphibians in the UK. He completed a MSc in parasitology and then decided to continue with a PhD on amphibians and contacted several large amphibian behaviour groups. Among others, he was offered and accepted a place at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa under the supervision of Prof Neville Passmore. His PhD involved the behavioural ecology and acoustic communication of several species of African amphibians, as well as E.coqui in Puerto Rico in collaboration with the late Prof. Margaret Stewart. During his field work in South Africa he discovered and named a new species of frog, Arthroleptella ngongoniensis (Bishop and Passmore 1993).

Phil spent 15 years in South Africa and led a research group on communication biology. As a response to the global crisis of declining amphibian populations and the realisation that no amphibian surveys had been conducted in southern Africa, he initiated the Southern African Frog Atlas Project in 1995. This was the first time that an atlas of frogs had been attempted on a national scale. The project, which relied heavily on public participation (Birding is out - Frogging is cool!), surveyed all the 2000 quarter degree grid squares in South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho for frogs and their abundance estimated so it could be determined whether it was necessary to be worried about the frog populations in southern Africa. The project took nearly ten years to complete and was published in 2004 and incorporated the findings of several new species and a red data list.

His interest in frog communication and the ancient origins of frogs brought him to New Zealand where he now resides. Since 1995, his interests have become increasingly involved with frog declines and conservation as well as the study of the biology of rare frogs. In 2005 he was appointed as the co-leader of the New Zealand Native Frog Recovery Group and he is currently in the process of writing the new Leiopelma recovery plan. As well as being the previous DAPTF Working Group Chair for NZ he has recently been appointed as the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group Working Group Chair for New Zealand.

2008 is the International Year of the Frog and Phil will be pulling out all the stops to ensure that New Zealand's frogs are foremost in everyone's mind during this very special year! For more information on Frogs and how you can save them see his website - www.nzfrogs.org.