Swan Song

Swan Song

I have been raising wood frogs for about 40 years in the hopes that I could help populations increase. I have also been monitoring other places that once held wood frog eggs.

 Originally I was under the naive impression that I could ‘help’ wood frogs survive. I have vernal pools on my property but I wanted one close to the house and dug in a small pond so that I could hear the beloved spring quacking when the males arrived. For many years I had thriving wood frog populations, although I noted with increasing dismay that elsewhere less eggs were being laid, and overall I rarely saw adult wood frogs even in what used to be untrammeled forests that I routinely haunted.

 Two years ago all the eggs the pair laid outside my door went belly up in a deep freeze. Last year one male appeared but no female joined him. When no one came this year I visited a local ditch that I have been monitoring knowing that one pair of wood frogs laid their eggs there. I brought the one clutch home (they used to lay about five clutches a year), rinsed off the pollution, and kept the eggs in the house.Then I found another clutch elsewhere and brought them home too. Ditches are stand ins for lost vernal pools but all ditches are polluted by salt etc and dry up too fast for tadpoles to become frogs so survival rate is non existent.Three quarters of the two clutches died, something that had never happened before. Pollution, no doubt from two different ditches. I kept the ones that lived.

 Feeding the emerging tadpoles spinach and red lettuce fattened the first ones up until I thought most would be able to manage in my little frog pond. Last year some did become adults. Wood frogs return to their original birthing place to breed so at first, this year, I hung on to another shred of hope.

 Just two days ago I put what I hoped were some healthy round tadpoles into my little pond along with lots of vegetation. Suddenly, I felt compelled to keep some to raise indoors something I have not done for years. I followed my gut sense.

The ‘why’ breaks my heart.

 I’m keeping a few because I want to experience one last time the transformation of tadpole to frog – one of nature’s miracles. I just couldn’t face knowing that this was the end until that compulsion hit me. It is time to say goodbye. 

 It has become increasingly obvious how useless this practice of raising wood frogs has become and that it is time to surrender the last of my hope. The fact that I tried so hard to help my little friends doesn’t seem to have stemmed the losses that are beyond my control, so keeping this little aquarium signifies my Swan Song for both the wood frogs and for me.

I have loved frogs since I was a small child, my first doll was a frog. My brother and I haunted the vernal ponds on my grandfather’s property every spring bringing home wood frog eggs to raise and returning the adults to their original homes. We also raised green frogs and leopard frogs. When I moved here those quacking sounds filled a few precious nights each spring…Oh, the joy.

 Over the years I must have raised thousands and thousands of wood frogs. Wood frogs are an indicator species of the overall health of woodland ecosystems, but our vernal pools and wetlands have been filled in and now with very few exceptions the frogs have no place to go. Add this to the fact that these frogs are the most vulnerable of all amphibians because they must lay eggs in vernal pools or get eaten by fish. Wood frogs are disappearing everywhere. 

We have never cared much about frogs who have been around for 250 million years. Because they breathe air and water toxins in through their skin they have been in trouble long before anyone ever heard of climate chaos. We live in an increasingly polluted world. Even our human bodies are filled with micro plastics, polluted waters, smoke from fires, pesticides/herbicides, poisoned food.I guess it’s no surprise that disappearing wetlands and forest ecosystems aren’t the only issues affecting wood frogs. Rachel Carson brought the plight of frogs and other amphibians to the public’s attention more than 60 years ago in Silent Spring. Her dire predictions are now my reality.

For every quacking frog symphony I have heard and loved, I offer a prayer of gratitude thanking these amazing amphibians for their presence over the course my life, even as my grief overwhelms me.

Blessed Be

Caveat: Watch Out for the Experts

‘Experts’ in general worry me. You can become an expert in anything in a weekend, months, a year… One or two studies and you are an ‘expert’ or ‘master’ of something.Here is a recent example “Researcher finds that wood frogs evolved rapidly in response to road salt” (physics.org). It turns out this is ONE study and the frogs ‘survived longer’ supposedly because they adapted. It fails to mention that they actually lived for any length of time. I do NOT consider myself an expert in anything, but I have learned a few things because I am a naturalist who has been paying attention to nature since I was a child. I have been monitoring and raising wood frogs for forty years and KNOW that this is not true, not just in this area but extensive research by others across their entire range supports my observations. Wood frogs are well known to be an indicator species of forest ecosystem health. But one researcher can refute all other research with one study that doesn’t even indicate that these frogs lived long enough to breed? This kind of misinformation is rampant in our culture – Please don’t be fooled by those that think they have all the answers and don’t.

The worst part of this misinformation is that it suggests that pollution doesn’t kill.