Why are bullfrogs bad

By Ted Williams. Bullfrog progenitors arrived ages before the dinosaurs, when amphibians staggered out of Devonian seas to dominate the land for 70 million years. In the western half, where bullfrogs were unleashed in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries to augment frog-leg markets, it has precisely the opposite effect. Bullfrogs compete with and prey on indigenous wildlife. Bullfrogs, which can weigh two pounds and produce clutches of 20, eggs, dwarf native amphibians in size and fecundity.

And as global warming destroys habitat of the natives, it expands habitat suitable for bullfrogs. The largest bullfrog control project is in southeast Arizona, mostly for federally threatened Chiricahua leopard frogs. In Arizona bullfrog tadpoles gorge on abundant algae, then transform to juveniles that crowd banks. Adults eat many in a self-perpetuating food chain, even as populations grow.

With summer rains adults and surviving juveniles disperse, sometimes traveling five miles. But with aggressive bullfrog control natives move in from refugia. If one population flickers out, the vacant habitat gets recolonized from a neighboring population. Chytrid fungus is less problematic in metapopulations. In the partners finished clearing bullfrogs from seven-mile Cienega Creek.

Then, with Chiricahua leopard frogs cultured in ponds built with solar pumps, the partners established seven breeding populations that covered 16 square miles. Today that metapopulation has expanded to 32 square miles and 19 breeding populations. Hall showed me a PowerPoint presentation chronicling how the partners have facilitated enormous expansion of Chiricahua leopard frogs across an area 66 by miles.

In the Plumas National Forest in northern California bullfrogs threaten the foothill yellow-legged frog. The Plumas also sustains the federally endangered Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, which clings to existence in watersheds easily accessible to bullfrogs. These frogs face another alien predator — trout stocked in naturally fishless water before the age of ecological awareness.

So the California Department of Fish and Wildlife removed the trout with gillnets, apparently successfully because the nets have been coming up empty for the last two years. Despite the fact that abundant brook trout will remain throughout the Forest and beyond, a multitude of anglers, public officials and editors were apoplectic, accusing the state and feds of conspiring to end Sierra trout fishing.

But enlightened anglers spoke up, too. With bullfrogs eradicated, the Conservancy will reintroduce California red-legged frogs in the spring of from a population in Baja California.

Geological Survey has eradicated the bullfrogs with gigs and non-toxic copper rounds fired by. Next spring it will reintroduce California red-legged frogs from that same Baja population.

I n the realm of delicious activities conducted after dark with a fishing rod, one obscure sport is leaps and bounds above the rest. He was standing at the public access to one his favorite nighttime hot spots, listening for the call to action as two anglers were trailering the last boat off the lake and up the boat ramp in the twilight. The first call rumbled like a sub-woofer distinctly through a soprano chorus of tree frogs, crickets and other nighttime crooners.

Angling toward the sound and scanning ahead, the beam of his headlamp caught the shine of a whitish throat and a pair of eyes bulging up from the lily pads. He eased the canoe through finger openings in the thick vegetation. Slowly and quietly he set the paddle down and brought up the fishing rod. The frog sat motionless, stunned like a deer caught in the headlights of a train.

The strike was both predictable and surprising as the smallish head that had been above water erupted with a splash into a good 12 inches of determined predator capable of leaping nine times its length. Gillette set the hook and swung the spread-eagled amphibian into the canoe.

As late as the s, bullfrogs in Washington were considered a game species with limits and seasons. In , the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife went a step further and listed bullfrogs as a nonnative aquatic nuisance species. The only thing that separates bullfrogging from other dream sports of year-old boys — and anyone who shares that same sense of adventure for blood, muck, slime and things that croak in the night — is that it has the blessing of biologists. The bullfrog, a native to the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, came west on the coattails of the California gold rush and the resulting rich who longed for a taste of sophistication in the cuisine they had left in the East.

The original demand was fulfilled by harvesting the native red-legged frogs, until they were virtually depleted by One thing to note, however, is that it is illegal to transport live bullfrogs in the state of Utah, so if you catch them and plan on taking them home and turning them into dinner, Eggett says they need to be dead. He says that the Division of Wildlife is managing a project called Herps of Utah where anyone can upload a photo of plants and animals they find and get help identifying them.

Additionally, and perhaps more important, the project helps us determine the presence of native amphibian species. Subscribe to Our Free Newsletter. Heart of Utah. Utah Drought.