ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Faculty Affiliate Jan Schipper led an online PitchFunder campaign to save the Atelopus varius last year. Through this successful initiative and philanthropic support, these harlequin frogs continue to breed.

“The ethics of saving a species is a new one for humanity,” Schipper said. “We have a moral imperative to not let any species go extinct due to our reckless nature and heavy footprint on Earth, but we are also finding the value of the species is far more than just intrinsic.”

Schipper is a conservation and wildlife biologist, the field conservation researcher director at the Arizona Center for Nature Conservation/Phoenix Zoo and an adjunct faculty in the ASU School of Life Sciences.