Bullfrog Population Explosion

My pond is being overrun with bullfrogs of all sizes and stages of development. During the all I see are frogs up to 3" but at night some monsters show up. Now my white butterfly koi Moondoggie is missing and I suspect became a midnight snack for one of the larger frogs. We have counted as many as 40 frogs lounging around on the lily pads and I am sure there are that many hiding in the floaters. Culling seems to be in order since they appear to be the top predators in this ecosystem. My plan is to relocate some to the river bottoms but have a few questions.

How many frogs can a 12, 000 gallon pond support?
Should the large ones go first? My guess is another Big Kahuna will move right in since there is no shortage of BF in the area.


Polywog

Kermit was found floating belly up in the pond yesterday. Do bigger frogs kill ones that are becoming mature and a threat to their territory?

oops! duplicate post!


This message was edited Aug 28, 2005 11:27 AM

I guess this is the best way to control the frog population. Luckily none have been seen in my pond so far and I would prefer to leave it that way.



Water Moccason

OH WOW...we are quiet froggy here too but most of our are Green Bronze frogs...tree frogs and toads. My husband loves the baby toads.

I would probably leave them alone...I think I remember that you have a big pond and I think another biggy would just come along..:)

The frogs will move on if there is a lack of food in the area. We go through times with 100s and times with 10 you never know what you will get over time, but they move when the food moves from what I have seen around here.

Thanks for the thoughts on my frog infestation. The frogs are hard to catch but I did manage to relocate about 2 dozen polywogs and small frogs. Today I cleaned out the pond and removed much of the cover they hide in.
The problem is there is plenty of food until all my fish have been eaten. Actually I don't mind them until they start eating the koi and there are lots of minnows for them.

Shadowgirl, just about now I'm glad I'm not in Tennessee! Unfortunately, Bullfrogs, cool as they are, are really the 'bad guys' around here. I saw my first bullfrog tadpole a few weeks ago and it scared the 'you know what' out of me! I'd never in my life seen a tadpole that big! Clearly 7" long. You are right to try to protect your fish, because they'll eat anything they can and with that many frogs, seems to me that they'll even try to eat stuff that would ordinarily be too big for them. They have voracious appetites. Yes, they'll move on when the food runs low, but you'll be out of fish by that time. And yes, they eat other frogs, too. They are wrecking havoc on our native frog populations here. I know they eat tadpoles, including their own, and have been known to eat small mammals as well as fish and insects. The snake will likely run some off, but I wouldn't want him around too long, either.

If you can't catch the biggest bullfrogs, can you do something else to protect your fish until they move on?

Relocation is almost futile ... unless you relocate them somewhere that forces them to cross a busy freeway, they'll simply come back. They have rather impressive homing instincts. Wherever they lived as a tadpole is where they try to return to breed.

Here's a picture of my son helping me deal with my bullfrog population:

Although I do know that Bullfrogs will eat mice, small birds, & other frogs, I've never heard of them eating fish.

I agree with the others who advised to just let Nature take its course. And would also like to add that I hope you're being careful around those Water Moccasin/Cottonmouth snakes, if that's what they definitely are - they're more of a danger to you than the frogs! If you're lucky, perhaps you also have some regular Watersnakes around - they adore consuming frogs & aren't poisonous.

Bogweed, I just love your photos! If only it were that simple!
Hate those cottonmouths. They are the only snake I know that can give me the creeps. I don't know. There's just something about them. Probably some childhood experience that involved a mother running screaming...LOL

I usually get 2 or 3 frogs each summer in my tiny pond. Right now there are 7.

I watched this guy eat a grasshopper 1/2 his size.

Thanks for the pictures and advice. Buck the picture of your boy cracked me up.
Frank, I have read the BF's will eat anything they can fit in their mouths. Some monster are out there now and the population of littles BF's shrank as did many of my goldfish, small koi's and skeeter fish. Of well I guess that is life in the jungle.

My neighbor had a huge bullfrog living in their pond.....
till they caught him with one of their goldfish in his mouth
The fish was almost as big as him

he no longer resides there........

This is a link to a section of Robyn's site "FishPondInfo.com", in which she talks about frogs, etc. Down on the page is "bullfrogs", click on it and read what she has to say.
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/frog.htm

Breezy ... not meaning to sound like a know-it-all, but the only eating preference a bullfrog has is whether or not it moves. If there's a chance that it'll fit in their mouth, they'll pounce it and try!!! That includes fish smaller than themselves. These beasts were the ultimate demise of my baby fish population and have eaten the other small frogs I have tried to add to the pond garden.

I believe we're down to our last one. We catch 'em, fry 'em up and pop a few beers!

Okay, I lied ... we catch 'em, march 'em down to the Potomac and hope they get hit by a car trying to make their way back to my pond. (they have unbelievable homing instinct)

They do decimate the fish population and there are hardly any little frogs left. Guess they are cannibals too.

My latest frog adventure: We have a single large female who has made our small pond her home. She's about 8" stretched out and the size of a man's fist when sitting. There's no doubt that she eats the fish; their numbers are slowly dwindling, and on the mornings the count drops she looks like she's been inflated. She's an ambush hunter, sitting quietly and suddenly leaping after her prey. The disappearing fish are 5-6" in length.

This afternoon she was hanging out in the area where I feed the fish, and they would have been sitting ducks as they picked up the food. I tried to shift her out of the way with a stick--no luck--so I used my hand. Quick as a flash she latched onto my index finger up to the second knuckle. She doesn't have teeth, but her grip was powerful enough that I was able to lift her right out of the water before she finally let go and dropped back in. I expect that she was as surprised as I was! We started the season with a dozen larger fish and a few babies. We're down to five of the bigger ones and three 2" young.

Yikes! Me thinks she needs a new home! You know it's bad when the animals literally bite the hand that feeds them!

"bite the hand that feeds them" lolololol

Yeah, kneff, I would seriously consider a search and extract mission one night here soon. Insofar as relocation is concerned, I would suggest a long, long drive out to the country ... a few counties away, if practical ... and make sure more than one major highway is betwixt you and the beast's new locale: they have impresive homing instincts from what I've read.

Of course, at that size, you might not have much of a problem finding you an old school suth'ner interested in a good, old fashioned frog legs hors du'vours!

Nighttime is a good time for poaching ... er, rescuing ... bullfrogs. I've nabbed a few by hand while they sit there stupified by the flashlight. For one that particularly provoked me, I broke out my stepson's new 10,000,000 candle-watt flashlight. We didn't catch the frog but we did put one particularly peky neighbor's cornea into temporary shock. Between that and the sprinkler incident, I doubt if he's much interested in poking his head over the fence anymore!

It's a tough call, getting rid of a long-time pond resident. This is her third summer here. When she was a little thing, the problems were few. Now that she's shifted her focus from bugs to fish, I am indeed tempted to relocate her.

She's proven to be disloyal. Bad froggy! Sad, but true, some animals just take advantage of our good nature! LOL
But seriously, do you know anyone with a large natural pond where she could be a happy frog, but not put the entire population of fish at risk? Preferably in the next state? It seems like she needs to be cut down a few notches and maybe being in a larger ecosystem, where she's not the 'top frog' would make her a bit less bold. From what it sounds like, looks like you'll have to choose either the frog or the fish. I don't envy you that position.
I take it you don't want Bogweedbuck to send his son in to complete the mission?

You could always consider the compromise route ... remove the legs with a blazing hot knife so as the cauterize the wounds! You can keep your frog and your fishies too!!! (or, "you can have your frog and eat it too!")

Now this is getting bad!
Kneff, pay no attention to Bogweed's bad jokes! :)
But do let us know how this works out. It sounds like you are a bit attached to the frog, since she's been in your pond for three years. I have wildlife in my yard that I consider 'pets' of a sort. There is a Douglass Squirrel who squeals at me from the giant fir tree if there is no food out for him. I feel very fortunate because these little red squirrels live mostly in old growth forest and don't generally do well in populated areas. I've lived here 5 years. The first two years, I never saw him. The third year I saw him but he would run away quickly if I approached the window. The forth year he stopped running so far, and would just scurry up the tree and watch from far up. This year he sees me coming out and races down to chatter at me. I don't know if it's the same squirrel, but if not, then the information is being passed around that I'm 'safe'. This spring there were two red squirrels, and then some babies! It was so exciting.
But I don't know how I would feel if they raided my pond. That would be a hard one!

And the plot thickens....I hadn't seen the frog since the biting incident, and thought maybe she'd gone off on her own. Nope--there she was again tonight, hanging off a lily pad. Plus, off to the side of the waterfall, what did I see but two BIG tadpoles. Uh oh.

Bogweed, I think I would be arrested if I tried your solutions! I'd take my froggy girl down to the golf course below us where there are several large ponds, but she'd probably beat me home.

Pixydish, that's very cool about your squirrel. The frog is a pet in a weird way. I know she distinguishes me from other people because she never jumps back in the water when I'm in the area, and instantly does so when anyone else approaches. And until the biting incident, if she was in the water, she would swim over to the edge of the pond and watch me. Any of the other frogs that visited the pond through the years were always skittish and kept their distance. This one has been different.

Yes kneff, at the beginning of the season the giant bullfrog I named Wooly Bully, in honor of Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, was my pet. Then when all the little frogs would let me get right next to them when I groomed the pond they were so cute. They even started to come up and feed when I fed my koi. Then they stated to feed on my koi and my warm fuzzy feelings for them is gone. I told my DH last night that he needs to get a hankering for frogs legs. Personally I do not eat frog legs, contrary to what anyone may have heard they do not taste like chicken. They taste like frogs.

Loretta

I think bullfrog tadpoles are the grossest things I've ever seen in the water, bar none! I can't figure out why they give me the creeps, but they are just too, too big to be tadpoles! I saw some in a friend's lake recently and I still haven't gotton over it! LOL

Kneff, I think your froggy girl was sizing you up with all that watching! LOLOLO She just wants to see what she can get away with. And now she has babies! Soon they will become little gobblers, too. Then 'bye bye' to anything else in the pond! I'm really looking forward to hearing about how you will solve this one. It may involve a nice LONG drive in the country.

Loretta, my DH is from Tennessee. He says you just go 'frog gigging'!

And you know, as large as they are, those tadpoles take 2 seasons - sometimes 3 - to turn into frogs.

So true. At least that gives you plenty of time to relocate the tadpoles.

The big bullfrogs will eat the tadpoles and polywogs. So at least they're good for something.

Oh yeah! I forgot they cannibalize their own young! LOL
Actually, I'm thinking that big bullfrogs are good for lots of things - as long as they are where they are meant to be!
So, shadowgirl, what ever happened to your frog problem? Do you still have any fish left?

I do, but the big bullfrogs have eaten quite a few of the small fish and frogs. Most of our koi are fine because they are 10" to 15" long. It's interesting because the monsters come around for a week or so, make lots of noise, then seem to leave. Now that they are gone there seem to be lots of rosy minnows and some baby koi. Umfortunately Moondoogie appears to have been eaten. DH brought home a new koi yesterday that is white with orange and black spots

Poor Moondoogie. Hope your new koi is on the larger side!
Did you decide to let nature take its course and see what happens?

Every fall I scoop out the frogs from my tiny pond and take them to the pond at "Mid-coast Boat House". My 9-iron gets a lot of use on dandelions.

Which make far less of a mess than bullfrogs, I might add ....

You're a hard man, Bogweed!

I don't know if anyone is reading this anymore, but when I put a minnow trap in my pools with some bread in it, I can pull out 10 or 12 tadpoles a day that way.. we like them here, but the bass and water snakes seem to keep the population down.. the big ones will jump after a fake frog fishing lure from several feet away!! as my friend said, if they were as big as dogs, we would have good cause to fear them!

Good info, Steve. I'll check to see how the state is trying to control bullfrog populations up here.