Many of these declines were described as “enigmatic”, because frogs, toads, newts and salamanders were dying in supposedly protected habitats. As participants at the congress compared notes, they realised that the same was happening all over the world. While studying the courtship and mating of British newts in the wild, he had noticed over the years that the numbers in his study ponds had been falling. In 1989 Halliday was one of the prime movers in organising the First World Congress of Herpetology (herpetology is the study of amphibians and reptiles) at the University of Kent, Canterbury. The current chief scientist of the Amphibian Survival Alliance, Phil Bishop, called him “the leading champion and ambassador for all things amphibian”. Tim Halliday, who has died aged 73, was one of the leading figures in a worldwide initiative to raise the alarm, and to understand the reasons for the decline. Almost exactly 30 years ago, the first warning sounded that amphibian species were already in potentially catastrophic freefall. By drawing attention to the beauty of these vulnerable creatures, I hope to raise awareness of this disturbing phenomenon.The recent shocking UN report on the threatened extinction of one million species has focused global attention on the crucial role of biodiversity in the health of the planet. There are nearly 7000 species of amphibians and it is estimated that around a third of them are threatened with extinction. In 2016, I wrote a 600-page book, The Book of Frogs, published by Chicago University Press in the USA and by Ivy Press in the UK. I retired as Professor in Biology at the Open University in 2009 and returned to art, painting pictures of amphibians, particularly those that are extinct or nearly so.
From 1993 to 2005, I was international director of the IUCN Declining Amphibian Populations task force, a network of scientists seeking to understand this phenomenon. In 1989, herpetologists from around the world held their first international congress and it became apparent for the first time that amphibians were mysteriously disappearing worldwide. Since then, I have been interested in biodiversity and its decline, though my research career was focussed on the more cheerful topic of the sex life of newts, frogs and toads.
I decided to write and illustrate a book of my own and Vanishing Birds was published in 1978 some of its illustrations are featured here. After graduating from New College, Oxford with a degree in zoology, I spent a short period making less than a living illustrating children's books.
As a schoolboy at Marlborough, my two enthusiasms were for art and biology I became a biologist largely because it is a subject in which being able to draw is an advantage. All of the other content on this site was written by Tim. His family are maintaining this site and his prints are still available to order.
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