Mexican fishermen and scientists join forces to save rare salamander

AFTER decades working as a fisherman on a high-altitude Mexican lake, Froylan Correa is now helping to save an endangered amphibian with gills resembling a lion’s mane and a remarkable regenerative ability.

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The achoque, also known as the Lake Patzcuaro salamander, is a lesser-known relative of the axolotl, the small, friendly-faced amphibian battling extinction in Mexico City.

Overfishing, pollution and reduced water levels in Lake Patzcuaro, its only natural habitat, mean that the achoque is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In an attempt to prevent it disappearing, biologists from Michoacana University decided to pay the local Indigenous community of San Jeronimo Purenchecuaro to help the achoque to reproduce.

Correa, who knows the lake in the western state of Michoacan like the back of his hand, has a new job as an amphibian egg collector.

Now in his 60s, he remembers when the waters teemed with fish and there was no need to worry for the salamander.