The fort worth ZOO (FWZ) has a thirty year long history working with the puerto rican crested toad, (peltophryne lemur, prct)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) awarded a $1,375,534 project grant under the Endangered Species Recovery Implementation program (CFDA 15.657) to The Fort Worth Zoological Association, doing business as the Fort Worth Zoo, to support the conservation and recovery of the endangered Puerto Rican crested toad.

The key objectives of this 3-year project are to: 1) Establish an in situ conservation center to increase captive breeding and genetic diversity of toads for reintroduction, 2) Facilitate new community engagement opportunities, and 3) Implement research programs to protect introduced and wild toad populations. These activities aim to increase population representation, redundancy, and resiliency, expand knowledge, and reduce costs associated with the ongoing recovery efforts, ultimately enabling the delisting of the Puerto Rican crested toad within 10 years. The project will be implemented in partnership with the Puerto Rican Department of Natural and Environmental Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The FWZ and puerto rican crested toad conservancy (prctc) oversee the prct breeding and reintroduction program in the united states working closely with the USFWS and puerto rican department of natural and environmental resources to implement in situ and EX situ recovery actions in PR. As primary puerto rican crested toad working group partners, FWZ and prctc are requesting funding to expedite activities that address 12 recovery plan priority criteria. If supported, this project will expedite delisting of this species within 10 years through the development of an in situ conservation center, facilitation of new community engagement opportunities, and implementation of research programs that will protect introduced and wild populations. These achievements will 1) increase representation of the species by substantially bolstering breeding output and genetic diversity of offspring produced for reintroduction into varied environments across the island, 2) expand redundancy through the fortification and reinstatement of a reintroduction site that was closed due to lack of resources, 3) amplify resiliency via enhanced research, habitat restoration, control of introduced invasive taxa, and sustainability of introduced and wild populations, 4) increase knowledge, resulting in identification of critical habitat and estimation of population abundance, and 5) reduce overall cost and staff resources currently expended for recovery effort through consolidation of the breeding population and reduction of time needed to accomplish delisting criteria. Together, these proposed measures encompasses priority recovery criteria defined within the prct recovery plan and 5 year review and will substantially increase and protect prct populations resulting in rapid delisting and a sustainable future.