It is estimated that several thousand ghost bats remain in existence today. Declines in population are expected to be reversed in part because of increased survival rates, not because of immigration from other isolated areas. There are very few national parks that strive to protect the species at this time. The decline has been correlated to the increasing range of the amphibian species "Rhinella marina" ("Bufo marinus"), known locally as the cane toad. Investigations of recorded sites found the bat absent when the toad reached their local habitat, combined with the evidence of occasional consumption and—in one example—found in the throat of a deceased bat, the advance of the cane toad is strongly implicated as the cause of their rapid decline.