Relatively common in the 1950s, the Wyoming Toad experienced a sharp decline during the 1970s leading to the endangered species listing and it was believed the toad was lost to science by 1980. The Wyoming Toad was later rediscovered in the wild in 1987 along the shores of Mortenson Lake, which is an alpine lake situated at 7,256 feet (2,212 m) above sea level. The toad is historically found only in the Laramie Basin within 30 miles (48 km) of Laramie, Wyoming. By the early 1990s a captured breeding program was commenced in an attempt to save the endangered toad from extinction, but no known wild reproduction has occurred since 1991.Future conservation of the Wyoming Toad in the wild is heavily dependent upon eradicating the amphibian chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis), which is believed to be the greatest single threat to the species' future survival.The Wyoming toad frequents floodplains and the short grass edges of ponds and lakes. They frequently use abandoned pocket gopher and ground squirrel burrows as hibernacula.
