Frogs and Turtles

I believe that these critters eat your pond fish, unless they are Koi. Every once in a while we find that a turtle or a bull frog find their way into our pool. I truly like them and a frog, or so, in the pond is picturesque and adds to the charm, but they DO eat your fish....especially young ones. Think that even dragonflies are harmful to very young fish.

Whenever we find a frog, or turtle, (they seem to appear mysteriously out of nowhere) DH caputres them and takes them to a lake about 3 miles away.

Am I right in assuming that they will destroy the fish stock in the pond? Has anyone had experience in the department of enemies that harm fish?

Herons can cause extensive losses on fish, large turtles, especially Snapping turtles have a big appetite for aquatic plants, Kingfishers and snakes can pinch the odd fish now and then, raccoons can be quite destructive to fish and ponds...

Large frogs have been known to pinch the odd tiddler, even small birds, though they are more likely to decimate smaller frogs...

If you make a little freshwater 'oasis' things will come. Many of the critters that turn up will be beneficial, they will eat mosquitoes and undesirable bugs in general.

Don't be too judgmental about casualties, if the pond design and fish are any good, the good ones will survive and breed quite likely

Until they prove to cause persistent unacceptable losses, live and let live... Most turtles under six inch shell length are 'just one of the guys' when it comes to feeding the koi here, perky gentle little things most of the time on a well planted pond... They are welcome to peck on any aquatic snail they can find while they don't significantly ding the plants or fish

Now if it was a 23" long snapping turtle scoffing a basket of waterlilies a day the turtle trap is ready and waiting, also, any bullfrog with a mouth wider than 2" is always under suspicion, if the little frogs start to disappear, so will the big bullfrog...

Regards, andy

"adavisus" Thank you for the good information on the pond predators! One time we did have a long-legged bird in our fish pond....and he cleaned it out! So I went to a pet shop and bought young "feeders", since we needed something alive in the pond. Did not want to spend a lot of money on fancy fish, as I did before. We were surprised how many of these little ones grew to be beautiful fan-tails and veil tails, and just plain beautiful red-gold adults!
Next Spring will again purchase more varieties to add. But gott'a keep an eye open for those nasty fish gobblers!!

Hi hedandan, you can save your husband a trip to the "big pond" next time you get a bullfrog as I agree with adavisus. Bullfrogs are native east of the rockies so they don't wreak havoc or need to be managed/controlled by you and I. Bullfrogs will generally not eat your fish. I suppose if one flip flops out of water directly in front of your bullfrog's face it would get eaten as they will eat anything that can fit into their mouths but they just aren't designed to eat under water. They can not open their mouths when they are under water or they will drown. I have seen countless photos of bullfrogs eating birds and even one photo of one eating a bat and at least one photo of a frog eating a fish so it can happen but perfect conditions seem to have to exist for the frog to get the fish and the biggest factor would be the fish being out of water in my opinion. Bullfrogs definitely are opportunists but they like easy targets. See this link regarding diet-
http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/aw/declines/IntroSp.html
Bullfrogs like to be on solid ground to wait for their prey to come within range and this is why they are referred to as ambush predators. One of the reasons for this is that they shove larger catches into their mouths with one of their front feet. Even if they were sitting on a lily pad and caught something tasty, they would try to get to solid ground to eat. If a frog jumps at something whizzing by and ends up in water, the frog will usually lose his catch. Bullfrogs do eat other frogs that hop in front of their faces but other species of frogs all do the same thing. I saw mine swallow a leopard frog head first. I know it was a leopard frog as the legs were hanging out of his mouth. I have also seen mine eat dragonflies. Lots of dragonflies go down into their tummies. Although I have seen bullfrogs with lots of things hanging out of their mouths, I have never observed how it is that they get prey other than dragonflies which I have seen them grab mid-flight. In defense of the bullfrog that used to live in my pond with my koi, he never ate one of them although I originally suspected him because everybody and their brother told me the bullfrog was eating my fish. I'm not saying that he didn’t eat everything that flew in front of his face, but not one koi. I counted mine every day after I realized bullfrogs would eat anything they could fit their mouths around. My original koi were eaten by raccoons and by a heron. I know this to be factual as I finally trained a video camera into the area and caught the Momma raccoon teaching her babies to hunt. The heron I spotted myself gulping down koi in the middle of the day. He came in for a landing and gorged. I am told stray/feral cats also eat fish. I am thinking your predator is the "long legged bird" you have seen in your pond. I dropped a chunk of cinder block down to the bottom of my pond last fall. My koi hid in the holes and did perfectly fine. Mr. Heron returned several times and my babies were all accounted for. I tired everything under the sun to stop my koi from being eaten, the lousy scrap cinder block worked but my fish are small. If your predator is a bird, maybe this will help your fish get out of harm's way and the bullfrogs that you enjoy can stay and hang out. I now use monofilament fishing line to keep herons out of ponds. Turtles are another story. Those get relocated, particularly the snapping turtles mentioned by adavisus.


Here's a nice link to a fact sheet on bullfrogs-
http://www.seaworld.org/AnimalBytes/bullfrogab.html