Despite the persistent cold and snow, more hours of daylight tell us that spring is approaching… and we’ll be hearing the sounds of frogs in the evening.
Matt Ellerbeck is a frog conservationist and researcher. He says in our part of the province, the chorus frog population is in decline.
“In the early spring, when you hear all the frogs calling en masse,” he notes, “ those are the little tiny chorus frogs that people are generally hearing.”
You also hear spring peepers, which are also in decline, along with leopard frogs.
“Anyone who spends time outside hiking or camping or fishing or have been along waterways has probably seen leopard frogs,” says Ellerbeck. “ So we probably don’t stop to think that they would be in trouble.”
Ellerbeck says smaller, rural communities are much better situated to help the frog population. He encourages you to take your kids out looking for frogs, but has a request.
“Please don’t put sunscreen and bug spray directly on their hands because frogs, being amphibians, breathe through their skin, so those chemicals can actually kill them, just by handling them.”
He also reminds us that they eat tons of mosquitos and ticks, which can both carry diseases that humans can pick up.
More advice for frog hunting with your kids:
- Use a soft mesh net to capture them, rather than handling them
- Release them back into the wild after observing them up close. Do not keep them as pets.
- For fishing, do not use frogs as bait. Ellerbeck says there are several other options.
Click here to get to Matt Ellerbeck’s website, and find out what you can do to help the frog population.