Why are Axolotls critically endangered?
It is now thought only 34 Mexican Axolotls remain per square kilometre in the wild.
Their wetland home, Lake Xochimilco, was once part of a large water ecosystem of which only 2% remains today: due to urban expansion and the drying of the basin since the 1600s.
The pre-conquest indigenous peoples living in the basin, the Mexica, established traditional ways of farming on ‘floating islands’ ‘Chinampas’, allowing the salamander to flourish in the expanding network of canals and river beds.
However these organic traditional agricultural methods have transformed over the years, notably during rapid urbanisation and homogenisation of farming techniques in the 20th Century.
Today, because of complex socio-ecological reasons, very few agricultural producers still work the land, and those who do often use non-organic fertilisers and pesticides (which has a knock on effect to the wildlife in the water system), and there is an increasing abandonment of farming in the area
Xochimilico’s natural mountain spring water source was redirected to downtown Mexico City in the 1950s. This means that the southern wetlands are now fed by a water treatment plant north of the city, known to leak toxins and undesired chemicals into the system.
With permeable skin, Axolotls are highly sensitive to effects from pollution, and is also under direct threat from introduced fish species released into the lake in the 1970s. The initial aim was to increase sources of protein for the local community, but this decision has vehemently changed the species composition of Xochimilco: Carp eats Axolotl eggs, and Tilapia eat their babies.
Tourism brings in an estimated 1.2 million visitors per year to the canals, however many of these tourists are not informed about the sensitivities of the landscape, and it is known as a space often used for noisy recreational drinking on traditional punted boats called ‘trajineras’ (see below).
A combination of these factors means the great deal of pressure on the sensitive indigenous amphibian.
Domestic Axolotls in labs around the world are often thought to be related to the original 34 salamanders brought to Paris in 1863, which has led to serious inbreeding; many axolotls in captivity have susceptibility to disease and genetic weaknesses, including malformations from birth.
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