Frog disease

 
Everywhere I go at the moment, I see dead frogs in ponds, very visible
as they always seem to lie upside down with thier white bellies very
visible. I thought, as frogs seem to be on everyones mind at this time
of year, I'd look into whats happening and this is what i've found.

The story seems to start with frogs being imported into the USA from
S, Africa in the 1930's where they were used in early pregnancy tests,
with them came the chytrid fungus (to which all amphibians are
succeptable) This fungus spread into the wild. It then seemlingly was
passed to Britain initially with the importing of bullfrog tadpoles,
popular in the 1980's and then in the 1990's with the increasing imports
of farmed goldfish. Its said that American fish farmers even used to
shoot bullfrogs (who predated on these farmed goldfish) blasting them
with shot guns, the fish then eating these bits of blasted frog, thus
transporting the disease where ever these fish ended up !

Once here, the disease (which has the potential to be as viralent as
mixamatosis was to rabbits) quickly spread. A further complication is
that frogs were becomming more succeptible to this fungus due to high
levels of copper in thier diet, from eating half dead slugs, toxicated
by the new type of blue slug pellet now becomming more commonly used by
gardeners.

So once again, as with alot of other diseases in various animals,
seemlingly ' innocent' imports have again caused devastation, will we
EVER learn ?????




--
lannerman

 
lannerman;912786 Wrote:

I'm not sure that's necessarily the problem this year. We've lost some
frogs, not through disease, but because the pond froze to a depth of
about 18 inches, and they'd decided to tuck themselves into the shallow
end.

I suspect we're going to lose most of the ones who overwintered in the
pond, and will have to rely on the ones who overwintered elsewhere.




--
kay

 

some frogs,

Ditto (I think): as reported in another thread, we lost 13 frogs, 4
survived. I'm sure it's because the pond was frozen solid, and I failed
to knock a hole in the ice for all that time (other years I've both
knocked a hole in the ice, and in any case the ice wasn't so solid for
so long).  I know the figures, btw, because, as reported, I've emptied
the pond completely in the last week.

John

 
harry;912838 Wrote:

But here in Cornwall, yes weve had ice but not very much since the frogs
have been in the water and they are still dying At my local golf club,
there are dead frogs everywhere and up at Stithians reservoir, which
hasnt frozen over this winter, dead frogs there as well, so we cant
blame the ice down here. When I first moved to Cornwall  in 1974, there
were so many frogs here, that a Mr Skewes (froggySkewes) would pay 50p
per frog to send to schools and universities for dissection and it was
nothing to be able to collect 500 frogs on a damp night at times. Now,
youd be lucky to find  20 but toads seem to have survived much better.
So Im less inclined to blame the cold winter.

Lannerman.







Lannerman




--
lannerman

 On Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:11:21 +0000, lannerman

<snip>

I've not heard this before. AFAIK the new type of blue slug pellets
that I have seen (and use), contain iron phosphate (the older blue
pellets use metaldehyde, I believe). Is there another type that
contains copper?

--
 
Chris

Gardening in West Cornwall overlooking the sea.
Mild, but very exposed to salt gales

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net