Base Camp is a regular column in Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.
Every summer my parents rented a small cottage on a small lake. We swam in the lake, hiked a little and fished a lot. We fished mostly for smallmouth bass. Smallmouth bass, if you don’t know, love frogs. And so, frogs were bait.
At the time, you could buy frogs. But since we had more time than money, we spent hours stalking around the squishy edges of frog ponds. Catching frogs was even more fun than fishing.
We started every trip to our secret frog pond in rubber boots and came home in goo-caked bare feet. Some kids used nets to catch them, but if you were quick, it was better to use your hands. Slowly, slowly, slowly we‘d crouch into position. Fingers together, hand open, we’d hover above our little green prey waiting for just the right moment. SPLASH! Like lightning you snapped down on it so that your palm was on top of the frog and your fingers clamped around it, plucking it from the weeds before it could duck out of sight. If you were good, you’d get one for every five attempts.
After a few trips around the pond, the ones that got away on the earlier laps were even harder to catch because they were now a little… jumpy.
Frogs, scientists say, have reason to be jumpy. Frog populations have been declining worldwide with nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species now threatened with extinction. Since 1980, when I was at the top of my frog catching game, 200 species of frogs have completely disappeared. Save the Frogs, a non-profit organization dedicated to, well, saving frogs, says that an onslaught of environmental problems, including pollution, infectious diseases, habitat loss, invasive species, climate change and over-harvesting for the food industry are to blame.
People say if you have a healthy frog population, you have a healthy environment.
Frogs spend some time on land and some time in the water and because they have sensitive skin that can easily absorb toxic chemicals, frogs are especially susceptible to environmental disturbances. Biologists around the world believe that the health of frogs is indicative of the health of the biosphere as a whole.
I’d like to put forth another theory. I believe that if we teach children the joys of catching frogs, some of those kids will grow up to rid the environment of hurtful toxins. In fact, I don’t think we need to teach them; I think we just need to point them toward a frog pond and turn them loose.
You see, we weren’t just gathering bait, we were learning about the environment. We were engaging with nature, playing in it, sink- ing in it barefoot up to our knees. Sure, putting frogs on hooks was a bit mean, but let’s not overreact and pull our kids from the swamps where they can study, understand and connect with nature. Kids, after all, weren’t identified by Save the Frogs as a contributing factor to declining numbers.
The regulations on fishing with frogs vary from region to region. Where I live, it is now illegal to use all but one species—the northern leopard frog—as bait. Instead, anglers use millions of petroleum-based, frog-like artificial baits that I’m not so sure are better for the environment, or the frogs. We’ll leave that one in the hands of the great biologists of tomorrow. But we’ll have to wait; right now they’re in swamps with their hands full of little green frogs.
– Scott MacGregor is the founder and publisher of Canoeroots & Family Camping.
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Fall 2012. Download our freeiPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
