farmdoc's blog post number 690

For each wombat I have in my pen, the Tasmanian Government issues me with a permit. Last Sunday I emailed Patsy (who works in the Government) to cancel my permit for Coco following her successful release. Yesterday I received an email back from Patsy in which she wrote: ‘You have done such a great job with the wombats in your care. Thank you for all your help’. A nice compliment, but I feel grateful for the privilege I have of releasing wombats; so I should be the one doing the thanking. Having cared for and released 12 wombats, I know a tiny bit about them. I know even less about frogs. I know their presence signifies a healthy ecosystem; so it’s unsurprising that frog populations are declining in Australia and world-wide. Thus I’m always pleased when I hear frog calls around here. I adore the name Pobblebonk and the sound of its call. However I can’t identify other frog species by sound, or any at all by sight. My favourite recent frog story is this one – about the 2008 re-discovery in NSW’s Southern Tablelands, of the yellow-spotted bell frog (pictured) – which was presumed extinct for the past 30 years. The NSW Environment Minister said: ‘This is the equivalent of discovering the Tasmanian tiger, in terms of amphibians, in terms of frogs’. Dear treasured yellow-spotted bell frog, you’re a bright sunbeam of hope shining through an environmental thunderhead. I wish you all the success in the world.

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.