A few days ago, I scooped up some frog eggs. Now I have at least 239 Cope's gray tree frog tadpoles.
Perhaps the question is obvious,... I can probably raise 40-60 ish tadpoles to the froglet stage, when I would release them. One knowledgeable person suggested keeping them in a big basin outside, and I might do that, but it seems suboptimal. They are growing very quickly.
I probably shouldn't just release them into a pond; one reason is concern about spreading amphibian pathogens. There is a pond near their origin, though.
- These are homeless tadpoles, not kidnapped tadpoles - their origin puddle is gone.
- I'm doing pretty well on the mechanics of taking care of them, feeding them, knowing how many I should keep in a given space, and the fact that they aren't protected but I'm only supposed to have <= 25 amphibians at one time in North Carolina.
- Every day they get bigger and it's harder to keep the water clean; I've got a while before it's impossible, but it's work.
- If anybody in/near Durham/Chapel Hill NC wants to take on some of these to help rear them up, definitely contact me.
Some attrition is to be expected, of course, but they seem pretty perky as long as I don't stress them out too much.
Left in the puddle, they all definitely would have died. The next day there were no eggs left. Looking down into the puddle, phone camera maximally zoomed, I swear there were teeny tiny tadpole skeletons all over the bottom. I also saw happy water spiders, ants, predatory diving beetles, and some new white spherical floating egg cases. The circle of life is hard on amphibians.
School is out, so biology teachers are probably not an option. I'm not sure how to proceed.
I already contacted the Piedmont Wildlife Center and NC Herpetological Society. |
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