Weatherization Department
The Friday Report Friday November 22,1996
FromWright Energy's
Weatherization Network Since 1984
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The Mystery of the Frogs
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From the LA Times. Deformed amphibians, with extra or missing legs or other defects, are being found around the U.S. Baffled scientists worry that it may be the harbinger of an ecological crisis.
Schoolchildren on a 1995 nature walk in rural Minnesota were at first curious, then horrified, by what they found. A pond brimming with mutants: Baby frogs with too many legs, missing legs, crippled limbs, even missing eyes, as many freakish frogs as normal ones.
Extraordinary numbers of deformed frogs--some with as many as nine legs and one with an eye growing in its throat--have been confirmed this yearthroughout Minnesota and other states, concentrated largely in the Midwest. In California, damaged frogs were found in a Sierra Nevada pond.
The creatures are so grotesque they make experienced biologists gasp. Some mysterious force is disrupting the fragile period of metamorphosis when tadpoles turn into frogs, and the most popular theories involve parasites, pesticides that alter hormones, viruses, ultraviolet radiation--or perhaps more than one of them working in concert.
"These frogs are sending us a vivid message that something is wrong," said David Wake, director of UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. "To me, it's got to be environmental. The question is, what aspect of the environment?"
Whatever the explanation--natural or man-made--the images are haunting. Frogs have been immortalized in American folklore, and they inspire childhood memories of summer days of scooping up slithery tadpoles and watching their wondrous transformation.
When nature sends out such powerful messages as seven-legged frogs, biologists say, people should listen, because it signals that the environment is so out of whack that it cannot support normal life.
"I personally find it quite alarming," said Robert Bezy, curator of amphibians and reptiles at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. "I would take this most seriously. Not only for the frogs themselves, but you can extrapolate dangers for humans."
This year, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has amassed a phenomenal outpouring of reports of frogs with missing or extra legs at about 150 ponds and lakes. "Worldwide, nobody has ever reported deformities on this level. Things have just gone crazy. They've just exploded, and it's the suddenness of it," said Ralph Pribble of the state pollution agency.
At one central Minnesota pond, 91 of 94 frogs captured in a survey were deformed; at another, 65% were. At the original marsh, 30% to 40% were abnormal last summer, Pribble said. Inexplicably, most of last year's abnormalities involved extra hind legs, while this year most had missing limbs.
High numbers of deformities this year have also been confirmed in Vermont, Wisconsin, Iowa and Quebec, while scattered deformities have been reported in South Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, Michigan and several other states.
In California last month, scientists found disfigured limbs, eyes and other defects in about 10% of the frogs in a Nevada County pond about 75 miles northeast of Sacramento. "If 60% of the children in Minnesota were born with cleft palates we certainly would be concerned about it. That's what we're seeing with these frogs," said Kathy Converse, a wildlife disease specialist at the National Wildlife Health Center.
The defects don't appear to be genetic mutations, since they have struck various species, and surfaced suddenly in large numbers instead of gradually, as they would if they were inherited.
Until the summer of 1995 such deformities were extremely
rare--perhaps one among tens of thousands. What could now be damaging such extraordinary numbers at one time, in such a severe way, and in an array of places that seem to have little in common?
Many species of frogs, toads and salamanders have been
disappearing worldwide for over a decade. Biologists have pointed at ultraviolet radiation from the thinning ozone layer, wetlands
destruction and pesticides as probable causes for the population crashes.
Teams of scientists are examining the water and the frogs for unusual chemicals, such as herbicides and metals, as well as parasites, bacteria and other clues, but preliminary tests have come up empty-handed.
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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Sir Winston Churchil
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