zookeeperfrank
New member
Frog leg trade, salamanders used as fishing bait - terrible news; helping to spread Chytrid & Ranavirus http://bit.ly/PgDyly http://bit.ly/1iqrUkA http://bit.ly/1h4kkXw
Thanks Frank.
I had been camping there (on a boat) in remote areas with my parents since I was a kid. It took about 10-12 years before I ever spotted one of these guys and then saw 2 in 2 different places in one week. Both were good sized and in remote areas of the Sacramento river arm, up stream fed, sheltered coves. I saw them around 1999 or 2000 while fishing for bass (no live bait, outside of earthworms was ever used by my family).
Thanks..it's amazing how they can multiply if there are few predators; even in Bx Zoo ponds, which are within natural range but missing most tad and frog predators, populations explode...lg females may lay 20,000 eggs, and the tads are very hardy, eat everything! That's main reason they have been so widely exported for farming...but they are also escape artists...
Best, Frank
guess I should have been frogging instead of fishing for dinner.
As a kid I did not know the impact like I do now. I can still picture that section of stream where I came across bullfrog tadpoles by the thousands; it blew my mind as to how many their were. They completely covered the stream bed, which was several hundred feet long and 20 or so feet wide, in between a short waterfall and the lake. It was near Sugarloaf resort in 1995 or 96 if my memory serves me correctly.