I ended my last blog with a video I took of the weird sound coming from Steph and Vic’s back bushes. What in the world?
Here is the video again.
“Oh that’s a bullfrog,” said Steph. We’ve had it for a while. Maybe a year. You haven’t seen it before?”
“No, Steph. In all the visits we’ve had with you over the past 11 years we have never seen a bullfrog.”
Which was true. In all our previous 10 visits to Kauai none of us visiting from Idaho had ever seen or heard a bullfrog in Kauai. They don’t exist in southeast Idaho where we have lived the past 23 years.
Even though we lived in Georgia for 11 years before moving to Idaho, my last memory of encountering a bullfrog was in childhood about 60 years ago in Mystic, Connecticut. We lived near some woods with a path to Pee Pond, a frog haven, where my older brother David loved to catch bullfrogs. We’d see one perched on a rock and he’d stealthily sneak up behind it and grab it. They were quick jumpers though and he missed most of the time. But he’d catch them too. My brother would wrap the captured frog in his hand like a burrito with its head poking out and raise it eye level so we could stare at that adorable frog face. “Gotcha!” Then he’d let the frog go. Except for one prized giant bullfrog he captured and carried home. Named him “Junior.” Sadly, Junior met with a violent end. He quickly escaped from the bucket of water my brother set him in as a temporary habitat. We searched all over for Junior. A couple days later we found him splatted in the neighbor’s yard. Apparently the teenage neighbor kid, Trevor Bogue had run him over with a lawn mower. Bad Trevor! That’s the story I remember about Junior, anyway.
So it was pretty exciting for me to discover that bullfrog in Steph and Vic’s bushes just inches from their pool. I named him ‘Froggy’ and I chuckled every time I heard him croak, which was several times a day. And with this link I’ve definitely confirmed it’s an American bullfrog: https://californiaherps.com/frogs/pages/l.catesbeianus.sounds.html
Open the link and scroll down to the ‘Short videos of the American Bullfrog Advertisement sounds,’ click on the picture of the frog and you will experience what we hear blasting out of Steph and Vic’s bushes in Kauai.
Here’s another informational link: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/american-bullfrogs-fast-facts.htm#:~:text=Bullfrogs%20are%20the%20largest%20species,and%20live%20around%208%20years Only male bullfrogs croak, ‘advertisement sounds’ to attract mates and to aggressively protect their territory. They also don’t sleep; they stay awake and alert even when they appear to be resting. So they croak during the day and are active through the night.
Stephanie said the neighbors next door got so annoyed with Froggy that they captured him and dropped him off at the other end of the golf course. Two days later the frog was back. Frogs have a strong homing instinct as well. Lol
I happened to be out on the patio when the croaking started up and I captured this video. You can hear another frog echoing him although it’s hard to tell how close the other frog is. A bullfrog can be heard from half a mile away.
I suppose the croaking would get a little tiresome. Like when he interrupts your dinner conversation, which actually happened. We were talking over the frog through the open windows and I had a hard time concentrating on the conversation. Then David got up and stepped out on the patio. “There’s the frog!” he said. We all went out there to see. Froggy had jumped in the pool.
Not easy to capture a photo of a frog in a pool, but he looked to be about 5 inches long. Bullfrogs can grow up to 8 inches long and weigh a pound.
He took off swimming
“Hey, it’s a friggin’ frog!” I know. I seem to have experienced some strange attachment to this fella. Do you suppose I’ve connected with my spirit animal? https://a-z-animals.com/blog/frog-spirit-animal-symbolism-meaning/ “When a frog hops into your life, get ready for a big change!” For starters, they are associated with transformation as they start their lives as tadpoles in the water before morphing into land dwelling frogs.
Speaking of transformation now this blog is morphing into recognizing the dark side of bullfrogs …
I grew up in Connecticut around bullfrogs in their native habitat. And I hadn’t seen one for 60 years until this trip to Kauai. I’ve been rather excited about it until I started doing more research about the proliferation of bullfrogs around the globe and their devastating influence on the native species of the areas they have propagated. The bullfrog’s natural range extends from Nova Scotia to central Florida, from the Atlantic coast to Wisconsin and across the Great Plains to the Rockies. However, they have been introduced around the world by humans because we like to eat their legs (apparently), dissect them in labs, keep them as pets (did you ever keep a pet frog in a fish bowl?) and through other means. They have voracious appetites and will eat about anything they can fit in their mouths – birds, bats, rodents, frogs (yes, they are cannibalistic) newts, lizards, snakes and turtles. They prey on native species and are able to out-compete them for survival.
Bullfrogs are an invasive species even in states like California and Arizona where they were intentionally introduced as a food source but are multiplying at a fast rate with few predators. Check out the you-tube video in this link “Help Stop the Spread of Bullfrogs in Wyoming” (!!) https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatic/fish-and-other-vertebrates/american-bullfrog
So my happy bullfrog love tale has taken a dark turn … I had no idea …
A student, Heidi Beswick Cutia, is researching the invasion ecology of the bullfrog in Hawaii. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/hi/hawaii/environment/2022/02/12/a-researcher-s-quest-to-learn-more-about-hawaii-s-invasive-bullfrogs
Bullfrogs were brought to Hawaii from eastern North America about 120 years ago so people could eat their legs. They have spread to all the main Hawaiian Islands. Although people haven’t been paying much attention to them. Bullfrogs should not be confused with the more commonly spotted bufo toads. We’ve only spotted this native toad once in all our visits – January of last year near Kahili Beach.
Little is known about Hawaii’s bullfrogs, except that they are inhabiting the wetlands and eating other native animals such as endangered Hawaiian stilt chicks, snails and native insects. “A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study from 2004 put radio collars on endangered stilt chicks at the James Campbell Wildlife Refuge and found that when they could determine the cause of death for the stilts that 77% of them were being eaten by bullfrogs.” Stilt chicks are a long-legged, back and white, slender shorebird with a long thin beak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_stilt And they are an endangered species.
Along with the harm they cause in the low-lying wetlands, bullfrogs can also scale steep waterfalls into high-elevation streams and wetlands where there are a lot of native species.
So what about that bullfrog in Steph and Vic’s hedge? It might be a great place for it. If it mates with a female and she lays eggs in the pool, then the pool maintenance guy will dispose of them. So even if Froggy thinks he has a cushy spot (which he certainly does) he is not going to produce any offspring.
That fence behind Froggy’s habitat will be coming down after they complete the construction on the adjacent golf course. And if Froggy hops out there he might just get run over by a lawn mower.
The Decompression of a Boomer 