Kyle Ritland, DCD’s Director of Marketing and Communications and his twin brother Trevor are releasing a new book this month titled “The Golden Toad: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species”. Blending elements of scientific investigation, adventure, and memoir, the book documents their efforts to unravel the mysterious disappearance of Costa Rica’s golden toad.
As young boys, Kyle and Trevor 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” (Diversion Books, June 17, 2025), Kyle and Trevor 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 Niños.
The toad’s demise becomes a haunting foretelling of the 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.
“Our generation is one of the first to grow up with an overwhelming, intrusive awareness of the potential anthropogenic apocalypse,” Kyle says. “We’ve witnessed extinction as a part of daily life. We’ve seen wildfires and hurricanes worsen with each season. The idea of annihilation is ubiquitous in media, from TV shows and films to popular music. We are all the golden toad now, and we only hope that through its story, we might learn how to spare ourselves and other species from a similar fate.”
With the publication of this book, Kyle and Trevor are setting their sights on new environmental stories, documentary filmmaking, and exciting future expeditions, all while embracing the challenge of sharing their passion for the natural world with their young children.
You can learn more about the book and their work here: www.findthegoldentoad.com
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