RAUK - Archived Forum - 3 Buckets of Frogs (Mervyn.. dont look)

Hi all,

The results of today school pond rescue, official count not done yet but it's over 100. Interesting, as this population was in a fully enclosed court yard so genetically isolated for some time (the garden was formed in 1984). I've a few of the recently reported colour varieties and will do a full count later and get pics and work out the frequencies. I was told that mutations occured in the tadpoles last year. I saw no froglets today at all, and guess they have been No. 1 food source for adults and sub-adults. Most have been rescued, but I'll pop back tomorrow or Saturday and collect the rest.

Nice job Gemma!.

Brings back memories of our school pond rescue last year. Any newts yet?

Alan

Hi Alan,

no newts at all, I think that the frogs were started off with a bit of spawn in the courtyard and thats all there will be, apparently they did spawn this year, but no sign of tadpoles or froglets.

final count - 118 mostly sub adult. Of 14 adults 2 were what I would describe as typically marked 10 showed various degrees of heavy black mottling 2 are orange.

Of the 104 sub adults ALL appear typically marked other than occassional black mottling, but nothing like to the extent found on the adults.

All but 4 of the adults are highly emaciated and they are the most typically marked ones, 3 are extremely weak including the 2 orange ones, all the sub adults are well fed and very lively, so some conclusions to be drawn from all that I guess??

And today the great release (always the best bit). I went for an isolated woodland site for the ropey adult frogs with no known frog population, thinking being that if in their emaciated condition they are harbourers of disease, they are unlikely to come in contact with a local frog population, yet will find plenty of food to live out their natural lives.

The healthy sub adults were released in an area with ponds but some distance from them.

With the fears of spreading redleg, in particular, I think it worth considering releasing translocated frogs some distance from ponds but where suitable damp refugia and an abundant food supply are available. In this way nature will filter out any "bad un's" before they can come in close contact with local frogs, what do others think?

I think you've done a grand job . Well done!

I'm not sure on amphibian translocation, and have asked the same sort of questions about the frogs we saved from our local school. Maybe it's still a mystery as to what the success rate is on translocated amphibs?

On a slightly different note ... here's what's happening in my garden pond this morning.

Alan

aaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwww they are just so cute!

It does seem an area where advise is a bit wooly. As far as I know there is no direct evidence that a translocation of spawn or adult frogs has ever caused the spread of redleg. Smith mentions it as being around back in the 50's but associated it with captives, so very likely stress induced. I see it in about 1 in 100 wildies, though they often seem otherwise fit and healthy. I've also seen photo's of entire populations wiped out apparently because of it.. though I wonder if it was due to some other root cause such as overcrowding, redleg being opportunistic and thus becoming the primary symptom.

In this case the fully enclosed nature of the donor pond in central London courtyard (I could hear Big Ben during the rescue!) left no choice but to translocate and I hope the precautions taken, were in the situation, the best thing to do. I also checked all 118 of them for symptoms of redleg.

I guess the final answer is only translocate if 100% necessary.

My own view is that Common Frog translocations are likely to be very successful for the individuals, they range quite far in the summer and this is often proven by the speed with which new ponds will be colonised (2 weeks for one I created in Suffolk, the nearest breeding pond being over a mile away)

I'm not so sure for other native amphibian species.

Probably best to release them into nearby suitable habitat so they can make their own way to ponds in the area - of course a few could be put into your garden if it is not too far away

Gemma was that a rescue in Essex?

JC