Lake County News. (2023, March 12). Tuleyome Tales: Bullfrog blight. Retrieved September 04, 2023, from https://lakeconews.com/news/75161-tuleyome-tales-bullfrog-blight#:~:text=California%20allows%20the%20importation%20of,help%20limit%20the%20negative%20impacts. 

 

American Bullfrogs, native to Eastern North America are one of California’s top ten invasive species. Originally brought as food for gold miners, many escaped and reproduced throughout California. People still bring them to California for food and as pets and oftentimes release them. Due to them laying 40,000 eggs a year, and their large bodies and appetites, they outcompete and eat native amphibians, along with other species. This has resulted in extreme native species population declines.

 

American Bullfrogs are eight-inch one-pound frogs with high reproduction rates that are native to Eastern North America. However, they are invasive to California where the ecosystems are not made for them. They eat native baby birds, amphibians, baby fish, small mammals, and insects. They also kill animals through chytrid fungi which does affect the bullfrogs themselves, but kills native animals. Bullfrogs killing species not only is harmful to the ones directly killed but also harms other species that rely on those native organisms to live. When I read this article, I wondered how humans can help fix a problem they created. In certain areas, bullfrogs could be hunted and used as food, however in Clearlake where the water has mercury, the frogs would likely be unsafe to eat making them have to be killed off for nothing, or animal feed. This makes me upset because a bunch of innocent bullfrogs have to be killed because humans decided to bring them to California killing native species.