---
title: Panama's Golden Frogs Move Outdoors for the First Time in Twenty Years
description: Panama's national symbol has not been seen in the wild since 2009. At El Valle de Anton, the frogs are living in screened outdoor enclosures again.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-07-27T13:32:12.620Z
canonical: https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/panama-golden-frogs-outdoors-first-time-twenty-years
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/panamanian-golden-frogs-outdoor-enclosure-53148.webp
categories: Mindful Travel
content_type: News
region: Panama
publication: Rich Travel Magazine
access: members
schema_type: Article
---

In El Valle de Anton, Panama, golden frogs are living outside again. For the first time since the early 2000s, the country's yellow and black national symbol is meeting rain, sunlight and shifting temperatures, in shaded and screened enclosures rather than the sealed indoor rooms that have kept the species going for a generation.

Atelopus zeteki has not been seen in the wild since 2009. Chytrid fungus reached Central America in the 1980s and moved through the region's amphibians fast enough that conservationists pulled a small group of golden frogs out of the forest for safekeeping before the wild population was gone. Panama was among the hardest hit countries anywhere. Eight of its amphibian species are among the 90 the disease has [driven to extinction](https://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/mass-amphibian-extinctions-globally-caused-fungal-disease) worldwide, and another 52 Panamanian species have crashed by more than 90 percent without dying out.

The frogs at El Valle are raised by the EVACC Foundation, a Panamanian nonprofit based at the Hotel Campestre whose team has bred more than 30 amphibian species and which is run by Panamanians rather than by outside organizations. Its current study compares how captive bred Atelopus zeteki and Atelopus varius grow in semi natural conditions against animals raised in controlled ones, following each frog from the tadpole stage through the first stage froglets known as morphlets and on into juvenile life, recording growth and weight at each turn.

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