The Costa Rican cloud forest, a mysterious amphibian killer, and a vanished species: with support from Leonardo DiCaprio's Re:wild campaign, twin documentarians and environmental writers follow their father's footsteps into the heart of the modern extinction crisis.
As young boys, Trevor and Kyle Ritland were fascinated by the magnificent golden toad of Costa Rica, a brilliant species their biologist father showed them in his projector's slide shows. Native to only one wind-battered ridgeline high on the continental divide above the cloud forests of Monteverde, thousands of golden toads would congregate for a few weeks each year in ephemeral pools among the twisted roots to mate, deposit their offspring, and retreat again beneath the earth. But from one year to the next, the toads disappeared without a trace; the last of them vanished more than thirty years ago. Since then, only rumors remain-alleged sightings by local residents, which beg the question: could the golden toad still be alive?
In The Golden Toad, Trevor and Kyle set off to investigate an environmental mystery with unexpected revelations, a story that speaks to our own collective and uncertain future. Guided by Costa Rican naturalists-including the last person to have seen the golden toad alive-Trevor searches for survivors while Kyle hunts the killer, and their paths lead them through an imperiled forest, a deadly pandemic, and a changing climate, finally intertwining at the site of the golden toad's last emergence deep in Monteverde's Bosque Eterno de Los Ninos.
The toad's demise becomes a haunting foretelling of approaching ecological crisis, but with a gold lining on the horizon. The Golden Toad changes the conversation around extinction, climate change, and conservation while exploring environmental grief, resurrection, and hope in a changing world.
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"A stunning and evocative ecological mystery that would not be out of place in the adventure fiction category. Engrossing from beginning to end."
-Jeff Vandermeer, bestselling author of Annihilation
"The Golden Toad is storytelling at its best and an inspirational account of people who dedicated their lives to protecting the cloud forest. At times heartbreaking, other times joyful, the narrative encourages us to think about conservation, extinction, and the value of friends and family. The Ritland brothers have guaranteed that not only will the stories of the golden toads survive, but that these jewels of the forest will endure in our memories and in our hearts and will inspire us to respect both forest and frogs."
-Martha L. (Marty) Crump, author of Frog Day and editor of Lost Frogs & Hot Snakes
"We live at a difficult moment in our planet's history; this book does a remarkably good job at dealing with the epic losses all around us and maintaining a sense of possibility. It is what nature writing needs to look like in our time."
-Bill McKibben, Cofounder of 350.org and author of Here Comes the Sun
"The Golden Toad is a riveting and dramatic mystery and adventure story! These two intrepid authors are masterful storytellers, and delightful guides to a rainforest paradise that still guards its secrets."
-Sy Montgomery, author of New York Times bestseller The Soul of an Octopus
"A captivating story of adventure in the name of science. Follow these intrepid brothers through the jungle as they go on a journey of discovery-about themselves, and the forests and animals around them, and the fate of nature in our ever-changing world."
-Steve Brusatte, Paleontologist and New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
"A gripping amphibian adventure set in one of the world's wildest, most wondrous places. In the spirit of David Quammen and Elizabeth Kolbert, Trevor and Kyle Ritland delve deep into history, science, and the rainforest itself in pursuit of an ecological mystery-and the charismatic, possibly nonexistent species that possesses them."
-Ben Goldfarb, award-winning author of Crossings and Eager
"The Ritlands have crafted a remarkable story of mystery, discovery, and loss, using language both beautiful and lush. I absolutely loved it."
-Jonathan C. Slaght, author of Owls of the Eastern Ice
"Compellingly told by brothers Trevor and Kyle Ritland, The Golden Toad is a story of extraordinary animals, ordinary heroes, and the planet they share."
-Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
"Kyle and Trevor Ritland craft a spellbinding narrative that traverses the misty heights of Costa Rica's cloud forests, and the shadowed depths of humankind's impact on the natural world. Their journey, interwoven with that of the golden toad, is one of reckoning, longing, and ultimately, reconciliation. With prose that is both urgent and lyrical, they deliver a story as vibrant as the creature it seeks to illuminate. The Golden Toad is a gripping exploration of loss and hope. It's a poignant reminder of the fragile wonders we stand to lose-and the resilience needed to fight for them."
-Chris Kalman, author of Damned if You Don't
"The Ritlands carry the reader on a journey filled with grace, dripping moss, and all the dark, lonely beauty of the Costa Rican mountaintop rainforest. They make loss tangible, while keeping a flicker of hope alive through those vested in conservation and love for what exists."
-Emily Monosson, author of Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic
"Part memoir, part detective story, a beautifully written account of the grief of species loss, both personal and planetary, that also contains a flickering candle of hope. A reminder of how much humans still have to learn about the mysteries and miracles of the natural world."
-Ash Davidson, author of Damnation Spring
Trevor Ritland spent two years in the cloud forests of Costa Rica before returning to the US to complete graduate work in documentary studies and science communication. He is an adjunct instructor in the Creative Media & Film program at Northern Arizona University and is the documentarian of "El Dorado: The Search for the Golden Toad" along with other projects exploring imperiled species and environmental mysteries. Trevor lives with his wife Priscilla and their dog Indie in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Trevor and Kyle founded Adventure Term, Inc., a nonprofit teaching environmental storytelling through field expeditions. Beyond writing for publications like The Atlantic, BBC, and The Guardian, they have collaborated with Leonardo DiCaprio's RE:WILD on the organization's "Search for Lost Species" campaign.
Kyle Ritland earned his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside while working as a freelance environmental journalist, chasing stories of island foxes, desert birds, and big cats. He lives at the edge of the woods in the American Northeast with his wife Alannah and their two cats, Hazel and Fiver.
