One Froggy Evening

He has been in a semi-stupor cocooned state since the end of last monsoon, when the sun dried up his puddle in the field. Struggling to shrug off sleepiness, he hops across his field to seek out for himself the best appearing rain puddle in the field. Entering with a splash, he joins in a chorus that reverberates in a natural symphony orchestrated by zillions of frogs like him. There amongst the weeds and under a cacophony of ‘redeets’, there will be blissful sexual orgies in the moonlit nights during the first weeks of the monsoon, just how nature originally intended. The bolts of lightening and claps of thunder light up the inky black night, just like the years before. The long hot dry summer seems long over. All seems well.

Not really. A new season has arrived filled with more perils for the Indian Bull Frog (Hoplobatrachus tigerinus) than he could imagine. To the poacher his kind is a source of income, to the epicurean an insatiable monsoon bonanza, and to an ecologist he is a key part of Goan wilderness. A survival that will hinge precariously on who prevails.

The Poacher

Again when the first rains bathe the land there is an orgy of a different kind that is taking place- a blood bath! l believed for a long time that frogs were poached only for domestic consumption. One ride on a rainy night through my village, Benaulim, changed that. My brother and I were horrified to find every man we accosted armed with a torch or petromax lantern in the fields, with him at least one bag, sometimes sacks full of live frogs. We caught up with about 30 men on that night alone. Never mind if the big adult frogs fetched a better price, a bag full of smaller ones certainly made up for the lack of numbers in the big adults. A few poachers squealed that these were destined for restaurants, not only in Benaulim but in the neighbouring villages too, where a live adult frog fetched 50-75 rupees! Now why would anyone want to miss this annual windfall?

Alarmed by our finding, I enquired in my ancestral village in Cuncolim and spoke to my village friends, who now rued that, to even catch a descent bag full of frogs to make for a family meal, they now have to comb the hilly jungles of Balli and far Sanguem. Our fields in Cuncolim just didn’t have many frogs anymore! Nirmal Kulkarni had told me months before that frogs have gone locally extinct in many parts of Goa, but I was horrified to realize how close to home this actually was. I couldn’t believe that these were the same fields, where as children these same friends and I, would see zillions of jelly globule frog eggs floating in almost every pond. Now the size of a frog determined if it spent a whole monsoon croaking, or in a 'chilly fry' at some restaurant! When commerce is involved, nothing stops a merciless poacher from chopping a juvenile frog in two or slitting a belly laden with a thousand eggs, while pulling off the skin whilst the legs still shiver with life. There is no inequity in their taste and no one to determine if the legs were chopped off a pregnant female, an adult male or a juvenile- they all come at a costly price.

The Epicurean

As usual this year too frogs will be consumed; not because the economic recession has cropped our shopping lists, but to satisfy a ‘traditional’ gastronomic delicacy of illegal exotic meat. Though many ‘educated’ Goans claim that themselves don’t poach frog, there is nothing respectable about asking the driver or neighbour to provide a bag full of legs that have been mercilessly cut off a torso while the frog was alive. Sacks full of frogs can ensure an uninterrupted supply of frozen frog legs for their loyal customers to last till the next monsoon. But few customers know that the death is a slow and quiet one, no croaking, no wriggling, just a fore limb crawl for some cover, to get as far away from where it lost half its torso, dying with their beady eyes staring into nothingness. The mute expressions say it all. This is a sight difficult to stomach. And yes contrary to a certain false perception, frogs don’t ‘magically grow back their legs’!

The Ecologist

The culinary virtues of frog legs have had a devastating consequence for the Bull Frog, which is now locally extinct in many places in Goa. With good reason the Indian Bull frog has been granted protection under the Wildlife Protection Act (1972). This is a key species that eats more than its own body’s weight of insect’s everyday, a natural biological agent that feasts on pests that destroy crops as well as abates the spread of human disease. The reduction in frog numbers has only increased our dependency on carcinogenic chemicals to prevent our homes and gardens from being ravaged by pests. But as we all know, no spray, smoke or cream will ever reduce the numbers of mosquitoes, as a resistance to pesticides is always developed over time. Right from the stage of a tadpole till they metamorphose to a frog, they instinctively hunt and devour insect (mosquito) larvae before later graduating into full fledged insect traps. When a pregnant female’s belly laden with eggs is slit open, not only is one frog destroyed, but an entire generation of potential insect repellents.

There are also indirect implications of reduction of frog numbers; food chains and food webs are disrupted when the prey base for snakes, jackals and raptors is reduced. Unlike domesticated animals like cows, pigs or chickens, no one can ensure that frogs will be hunted with any regulation to allow a sustainable system to allow the species to reproduce and replenish the numbers taken in anyone monsoon season. Could there be a symptomatic link to the numbers of malaria victims or the number of snakes entering urban areas to the depletion of frogs? It’s about time we realize that an ecological necessity should take precedence over an eating pleasure.

There are other ecological reasons like habitat destruction, fields have been filled, ponds have been drained and jungles cleared. Today wildlife organizations are trying their best to save what is left. We need frogs, but now the frogs need us.

The Reader

If I calculate the amount of money, I already have and am going to spend, in my lifetime to cake, smoke or spray an insect repellent, a toxic chemical that promises to kill every small flying insect, I will immediately know how bad my math is. If ever there was the most perfect insect repellent developed, it would have to be a frog, none more so that the biggest frog in its genus. My body does not react immediately to the small doses of poisons I use in my home, but a lifetime of exposure, I am sure it is definitely killing me slowly.

There are other more indirect ways in which toxins are entering my system; though the food I eat. Mom always told me to always wash the fruits and meat before I ate them; but I read that today everyone wants to eat organically grown and reared food only because, only then can one be sure that it’s totally free from any toxins that could potentially cause harm. The frog makes his living gobbling poison tainted insects, the very same ants, mosquitoes, roaches, and other insects that live in the fields, ravage my garden and plunder my orchard around my home. The frog doesn’t realize it, but his body tissues are surely incorporating toxic chemicals, from poisons we use to keep the insects in check and where he lives. Scientifically I learnt this in school, this is described in a process called ‘biological magnification’; where toxins are concentrated in predators because they consume large amounts of toxic prey. If frogs get poisoned by consuming pest killer laced insects and swimming in weed killer laced rain water runoff puddles, how can I not be deliberately be poisoning myself, if I call myself ‘a traditional frog eater’? I am sure I would never buy fish from a fisher-monger that will was sprayed a chemical to keep flies at bay, would I?! If at all there could there be a relation between the human consumption of poison tainted frog legs and the common incidences of human cancer in Goa, I am sure not going to wait for scientific proof to force me to give up something that I could just as easily do without. I want to live to a ripe old age!

The future of the Indian Bull frog is up for grabs- dependant on people with different stakes in frogs. This is a crusade we have to fight by ourselves; and time to stake claim to what we understand to be the absolute right thing to do in several counts. We can be the eyes and ears of the Goa Forest Department, who can be left to play the role of enforcers. So if you do see someone with a torch in a field at night, or a restaurant serving frog legs, explain to them the ecological and human disaster they are causing, besides slyly notifying the authorities. WildGoa (wildgoa@yahoogroups.com) is an online network of wildlife enthusiasts. We care as much for the Indian Bull frogs as they do for the Tiger and leopards in our jungles. Anyone can join this network, if not just make a small effort by calling these numbers that we have complied to aid us in our campaign this season.

And so when the first rains arrive this year, we will stage the largest yet sustained coordinated battle between the ecologists and the epicureans; the former who love frogs in the mud, and the latter who love them better on a plate. Or else there will be nothing holy about a silent night.