Frogs and Ecological Sustainability

Frogs are considered to be such good indicators of ecological health because they are vulnerable in both water and on land and their skins also are permeable to airborne gases. Air, land and water we all need. If frogs are not healthy, or are absent, we must be warned as to what is happening in the environment we share. Workers down mines always loved to see rats because if they were there they knew their own safety was assured.

Over the last 50 years frogs have dimininished radically from where we live? Marion Anstis in her book 'Tadpoles of South-eastern Australia' outlines the following reasons (2002, p25) for worldwide issues

• increased ultraviolet-B radiation
• diseases
• habitat destruction
• environmental pollution, including toxins and acid rain
• global climate change

and particularly in Australia,

• predation of introduced fish
• increased water salinity
• road deaths
• the Cane Toad - also introduced
• viral, bacterial and protozoal infections and congenital diseases
  
  
  And, Martyn Robinson in 'A Field Guide to Frogs' (1993-2000, p5)
• drained breeding sites
• changes in land use
• drought
• salination
• pesticides

Kevin Casey in his book 'Attracting Frogs to Your Garden' (1996, p15) says that "while many of us can look back to childhoods filled with memories of tadpoles or the stirring noises of frogs, now there are many people in many parts of the country who haven't ever seen or heard a native frog." Casey argues that" the widespread use of pesticdes and herbicdes takes its toll on amphibian populations and in the cities the draining of creeks and wetlands for property and industrial development removes vital breeding areas in an instant". He adds "there is still a great deal about the decline of frogs which we do not understand". More details of Casey's book is here in the Wildlife section.

In 'Frogs in Australia' Gerry Swan (2001,p 55) suggests that "for the Corroboree frog their serious decline may be due to global warming. For a frog that lives in the Snowy Montains and adjacent ranges the recent increase in summer droughts may have reduced its numbers to critical levels." And, as Martyn Robinson in 'A Field Guide to Frogs' (1993-2000, p5) "what is harder to explain was the decline and even apparent extinction of frog species in seemingly pristine natural settings in nature reserves and national parks". More details of these books are here

What Can we Do?

All of these authors make very useful suggestions about what we can do to maintain and boost frog numbers.

• make our gardens, parks and golf courses more tadpole friendly
  
• don't drain breeding sites of water
  
• don't introduce new fish species to ponds and creeks
  
• frogs eat many insect pests so do not use pesticides
  
• leave all frogs and tadpoles where you find them especially, in National Parks
  
• donate funds to frog projects
  
• design ponds to suit specific types of frogs
  
• join a breeding program with a permit and agreement of your local wildlife authorities
  

Links for Some of these Issues are Here

2002 (c) Catriona Jane M MacDiarmid
1997-2005 (c) EcoProperty®

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