Imagine growing up without listening to the song, chirp and grunt of the frog, which is getting ready to jump in or out of the nearby river, stream, brook or pond. Does it not look cool while it is hopping in search of food and mate, or just sitting by a brand new pool of water in the field or the roadside poodle, croaking in high notes to announce its territory? The unceasing summer chorus of the frogs, at days and nights, here and there, always fills the farmer with hopes of a bumper harvest. For more than 300 million years, these amazing amphibians have adapted to the changing environments of the Earth. Only now, when the humans are at the helm of all terrestrial affairs, frogs are facing an abnormal threat. A variety of these amphibians have gone extinct in the 20th century, thanks to habitat loss, farm chemical, global warming, invasive species, new disease, ultraviolet ray, and acid rain.
Killing frogs for food, hide, medicine and experiment has also had sinister ramifications. India and Bangladesh offer ready examples. In the 1980s, they overharvested frogs for export to the United States, where the people widely consumed frog legs. The local environment, in want of frogs, gave rise to a mosquito menace, leading to outbreaks of malaria and other diseases. The governments then banned the frog export. In other cases, generally, any sharp decline in the population of frogs, which survived ice ages, asteroid hits, and environmental shocks, is taken as an indication of something going awry in the local biosphere. Seen in that light, the news of east Sunsari losing its frog population is a serious call to act. It is not just about our frogs in trouble. Our people may be in trouble too. Frogs play an important part in the local food web and ecosystem. In some examples, frogs, which promised a cure for peptic ulcer, are known to have disappeared before the scientists were able to solidify their findings.
Coming down as one of the oldest denizens of the Earth, the frogs as a species, have a special right to live in a sound environment. If we are any grateful to them at all, we should assure their right to survive. Even if we are selfish, we should save them for our posterity. Our children will want to see frogs and listen to their unique songs. Some will need frogs for dissecting at the lab and learning about animal anatomy. Even the lay people will want the benefits from tadpoles eating algae and cleaning our water tanks, ponds and wells. Disappearance of the frog will disturb the food chain, affecting the snake and fish, the bird and beetle, or the man and monkey, alike. Listen to a local engineer from east Sunsari, the decline of the frog population, which means a rise in the population of harmful insects, will affect the farm production as well. Unless we act, the consequences may be graver and irreversible.
