We met the ecologist Karen Lips in Washington, D.C. One morning, she picked us up from a Metro station and took us to Shenandoah Nationwide Park, eager to point out us a species of salamander.
Dr. Lips describes herself as an amphibian forensic scientist. For many years, she has been researching the disappearance of amphibian species, and what she advised us that day was stunning.
As filmmakers, we’ve coated the extinction of species and different ecological points in our work for years. Mammals, reptiles, bugs, fish — a lot of the planet’s wild fauna is threatened with extinction. However no different vertebrate class is as threatened as amphibians. Herpetologists like Dr. Lips don’t simply worry for particular person species; they worry for the category Amphibia as an entire.
Nobody else we had met and interviewed on this topic gave the impression to be as affected by it as Dr. Lips. To place it merely: Frogs, salamanders and all amphibians are her life. For her, their growing disappearance from our planet is a private drama.
We lastly discovered a number of of the salamanders towards the tip of our day up within the mountains. We have been delighted at seeing them but additionally disheartened. Dr. Lips had little question that they, too, may quickly vanish. That night time, stuffed with emotion, we interviewed Dr. Lips, who’s the voice of this documentary.
That is about rather more than frogs and salamanders. It’s about all life on our planet.
Volker Schlecht is a Berlin-based illustrator, artist and filmmaker. Alexander Lahl and Max Mönch have made quite a few movies and are the managing administrators of mobyDOK, a Berlin-based manufacturing firm. They beforehand produced the Op-Docs “Damaged: The Girls’s Jail at Hoheneck” and “Insurgent Monk.”
The Occasions is dedicated to publishing a range of letters to the editor. We’d like to listen to what you consider this or any of our articles. Listed below are some suggestions. And here is our electronic mail: letters@nytimes.com.
Op-Docs is a discussion board for brief, opinionated documentaries by impartial filmmakers. Study extra about Op-Docs and submit to the collection. Comply with The New York Occasions Opinion part on Fb, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
