farmdoc's blog post number 375

I apologise because I’m two days late for last Tuesday’s first annual Save the Frogs Day. Frogs are the most threatened group of animals on earth. Nearly one-third of the world’s 6,000+ amphibian species are threatened with extinction, and over 100 species have become extinct since 1980 – compared with the ‘normal’ extinction rate of one species each 250 years. The reasons for this accelerated demise are all environmental, including pollution, infectious diseases, habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, and overharvesting for pets and food. So frogs are in desperate strife. But why do we need to save them? Because they’re an integral part of the biosystem including the food web, they’re used in medicinal research, and they’re bio-indicators (‘When the frogs die, we die’). Save the Frogs Day’s an initiative of Save the Frogs! – a US-based NGO with several Australians among its scientists, educators, policymakers and naturalists. Its website, a wealth of information, includes recommended actions. On a local level, Tasmania has 11 species of native frogs ranging in size from 3-10cm. Although the different species use a wide variety of habitats, they all need moist environments. My friends Herbert and Sally at Habitat Plants have produced a leaflet called ‘A garden for frogs’. Frogs must be saved, and only we humans can do it. Save the Frogs Day was two days ago, but of course it’s not too late to start saving them. Now.