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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 08/24/2005 : 02:00:12
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Sometimes people not only should know better but lose all perspective when it comes to forign species. The American bullfrog has been introduced to Europe. This is potentially an ecological disaster. quote:
Le Haillan, France - Picture this: French hunters stealing out at night in pairs, one with a torch to light up the eyes of their prey, the other armed with a .22 calibre rifle equipped with a telescopic sight and a silencer.
Their quarry? Invaders from the United States - bullfrogs, to be precise, that bellow like cows and typically weigh in at a hefty 600 grams.
This is France, to be sure, but the end game of this hunt is not sauteed frog legs.
These marksmen are ecologists, out to exterminate the bullfrogs - a.k.a. Rana Catesbeina - which are threatening the local ecosystem.
"A man living in Vayres (30 kilometres east of Bordeaux) stocked his pond with them in 1968 as a joke, and a few years later every stretch of water in the region was full of them," said Luc Gueugneau, who works in the government agency overseeing wild animals and hunting.
When I was a kid in the early '50s, there was a resturant outside of Atlanta that would pay 25 cents for every dressed-off bullfrog I brought them. That kind of coin turned me into sudden death, back in the sloughs and swamps. I'd gig until about midnight, then get some sleep until about 4am and work until daybreak. And then clean my catch. Thus I learned at an early age that, pound for pound, the bullfrog (Rana catesbeina) is one of the world's most ferocious, vertebrate predators.
They will eat anything that contains protien and moves. I have found in their gut, along with the expected bugs, snakes including venomous, toads, other frogs including smaller bullfrogs, baby turtles, mice, small songbirds, fish, tadpoles, and once, a bat.
Add to this it's adaptability. It can survive in almost any climate short of the Arctic or the Sahara. All it needs is food and water, and a reasonably long active season. A great deal of Europe fits the bill.
Here in the US, we have lots of really neat predators that love fresh bullfrog as much as I do. They include snappers and other, large turtles, various snakes, alligators, hawks and owls, small mammals such as the entire weasle family and raccoons, large fish, and not to mention greedy, adolescent boys. La belle France has few of these and is not up to the task of eradicating them. The method they are using is not going to work.
It seems a bit odd, does it not, that the French have come to loath the best eating frog in the world. But it highlights a problem that has shown up here in the US and elsewhere: introduced species with no natural controls in competition with natives. Sticking with amphibians as an example, the cane toad (Bufo marinis) has become a problem in Flordia and even more so in Australia, where it was intentionally introduced to control crop pests. Of course, it controled everything but those pests. They have few predators because they are quite poisonous when ingested.
It was the pet trade that intorduced them to Flordia, as it has done with a great many species (FL is an ecological basket case). They were (and still are) sold to idiots who decide that they don't want a fat, ugly toad after all, can't give it away, and lack the heart to kill it. So, they release it, to the detrement of the local, small fauna, especally native toads and frogs. And thus, we are stuck with them.
No, I fear that a few guys out in the night, plinking away with .22s, is not the way to clean out R. catesbeina. He's too tough and reproduces too fast. And he will migrate, usually in the spring. On the surface, a well developed commercial market might seem to be a solution, but that contains a trap of it's own: people will strt farming them, as they do here, and soon the problem will be compounded.
And so my frenchy friends, all I can tell you is that battered and deep-fried bullfrog legs with a bit of lemon and grits on the side is the best breakfast there is after a long night in the sloughs. Count your blessings and enjoy; it could be worse. After all, it ain't B. marinis.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
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Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 08/24/2005 : 06:06:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
armed with a .22 calibre rifle equipped with a telescopic sight and a silencer.
Sounds like fun sport, sneaking around in the middle of the night playing deadly assassin/sniper.
Oh, and thanks Filthy for some really nice reading! |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
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Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 08/24/2005 06:07:24 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2005 : 06:33:00 [Permalink]
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Yep like these frogs,
http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ap_050715_hawaii_frogs.html
They are turning Hawaii into a tropical nightmare. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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