Frog hunts frog. Really. (Hat tip: James Taranto at BOTW(t))

FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE HIT BY A MASSIVE INVASION OF FROGS

PARIS August 21, 2005 (Independent) - Hunters working for the government's wildlife agency will be stalking ponds in south-west France this weekend, aimed with flash-lights, rifles, silencers and night-vision sights.

They have been mobilised for the most intensive effort so far to terminate a plague of giant Californian bullfrogs which is threatening to disrupt the ecology of the Gironde, Dordogne and several other départements.

Oh-ho! Treacherous American frogs!

The aggressive and voracious bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana), introduced illegally 37 years ago, can grow to more than 4lbs in weight and almost 2ft long. It consumes other frogs, fish, lizards and even small birds. Ecological groups have been warning for years that they must be eliminated to prevent the destruction of indigenous species. Had they been a delicacy for humans, the American interlopers might have been tolerated. Unfortunately for them, they are inedible (even their enormous legs).

Destroying the frogs is not easy, however. The Gironde fisheries protection association attacked a pond full of bullfrogs with electricity a few years ago. The frogs fought back. The hunters battled with them for two hours. They killed just one frog before they gave up. Game-keepers and volunteers working for the Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage (National Hunting and Wild-life Agency) have now developed night-fighting techniques. The frogs are easier to locate at night because their eyes reflect torchlight.

"Shooting them with rifles is the most effective method we have found," said an environmental campaigner, Luc Gueugneau.

Even so, experimental attacks on ponds and lakes over the past 11 months have killed only 120 frogs. A much bigger offensive, starting this weekend, aims to exterminate all the bullfrogs in France within five to 10 years.

In the midst of a killing drought, a problem with lacustrine frogs. An abundance of edacious frogs, yet a problem with yummy locusts. What is going on in France?

It seems like only yesterday France was moping because she was bereft of frogs.

MALHEUREUSEMENT, THE FROGS HAVE HOPPED IT

April 26, 2004 (Telegraph) - The dying croaks of a once great tradition were heard in eastern France yesterday where the Brotherhood of Frog Thigh Tasters, for all their fanfare and elan, could not conceal the parlous state of French frog eating.

For the past 32 years, the brotherhood has hosted the Vittel Frog Fair [Foire aux Grenouilles], a weekend of froggy talk and japery, when the clinging smell of amphibians frying in garlic butter smothers the usually pine-scented spa town.

But none of the seven tons of cuisses de grenouilles consumed during the festivities were French. All came vacuum-packed from Indonesia.

For the first few years, the frogs for the festival came from local ponds. But years of agricultural pollution and environmental protection laws have taken their toll. Commercial farming of frogs was banned by France in 1977 to protect the species, and the EU has reinforced the bar since then. On top of that, the hunting season has become shorter and shorter.

The story of the decline of French frog hunting and eating brings together various strands of recent French history which are jeopardising similar traditions across the country.

"First it was the insecticides and fertilisers being used by the farmers," said Roland Boeuf, the melancholy secretary of the Brotherhood of Frog Thigh Tasters [Confrérie des Tastes Cuisses de Grenouilles]. "They got into the water and killed many of the frogs.

"Then there are the laws. In France now, you can only hunt frogs for 15 days a year and if you catch them, you must eat them right there on the bank of the pond." He, for one, never goes frog hunting without his frying pan.

"The frog fair used to go on for four days with all sorts of competitions, like a hopping race. But now with the 35-hour week and tougher drink-driving laws, people cannot afford to come and they have to be much more careful going home." The fair now lasts just two days.

PFFT (What is this?): Destroying the enemies of France 1 | Rayonnement français 0