TIMES COLONIST (Victoria, British Columbia) 16 November 06 Bullfrog blitz making strides: Funding will continue for eradication program aimed at voracious amphibian (Bill Cleverley)
Dispatches from the Western Front are in. The bullfrog battle has gone well, biologist Stan Orchard reported to Capital Regional District water commissioners yesterday.
But the war must continue if there is to be any hope of protecting the watershed from the American bullfrog, a voracious invasive species already dug in on the Saanich Peninsula and migrating toward Sooke Lake.
Orchard's 2006 frog eradication program concentrated on five Langford lakes: Goudy's Pond, Florence Lake, Lake Ida Anne, Langford Lake and Glen Lake.
Armed with electro-shocking devices, Orchard and his crew stunned and captured 546 frogs, including 166 adult females, 121 males and 259 juveniles.
The frogs were later killed humanely by freezing.
"My primary goal was to remove all of the reproductive adults, which we succeeded in doing in four of the five lakes. We removed 287 adult bullfrogs of which 166 were adult females capable of collectively producing at least 3.5 million eggs annually and potentially up to seven million or eight million," Orchard said.
Because the frogs being dealt with in the West Shore are pioneering populations, the numbers are relatively low and easily manageable, Orchard said.
"The number of adults per lake will increase as we move the eradication program through the Highlands and closer to Ground Zero in Saanich where the populations have been established now for some decades," he said.
Orchard has described the bullfrogs as "eating machines" that cause tremendous ecological damage. Once adult bullfrogs position themselves in high density around the edge of a lake they will eat turtles, baby ducks, woodland birds and garter snakes.
Water commissioners agreed to continue funding the program with a $15,000 grant for 2007. The CRD also gave a $15,000 grant, and municipalities including Langford, Highlands, View Royal and Saanich have provided money as well.
Commissioners also agreed to write to the province, asking it to consider contributing funding to the program and to release the funds in the spring -- the best time to trap the amphibians before they have fed and when they are still sluggish from the cold.
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/capital_van_isl/story.html?id=bb8c3d16-dcc5-424e-9ab0-3c6793c7099f
