Common food item: Frogs for sale in a Cambodian street market.
Credit: Mark Auliya
SYDNEY: Global consumption of frog legs has become so high that it is threatening to send both the amphibians and the delicacy to extinction, says a new study.
"Amphibians are already the most threatened animal group yet assessed because of disease, habitat loss and climate change – man's massive appetite for their legs is not helping," said study co-author Corey Bradshaw, an ecologist from the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Legs on the menu
"Frogs legs are on the menu at school cafeterias in Europe, market stalls and dinner tables across Asia to high end restaurants throughout the world," he said. "They are quite nice, but after this I don't think I'll be eating them again anytime soon."
Frog legs have moved from being a French delicacy to a global food item in the last two decades, according to the study in the journal Conservation Biology, which reports that 200 million to over one billion frogs are now eaten every year.
Some of the major species consumed include the Chinese edible frog (Hoplobatrachus rugulosus), the giant Javan frog (Limnonectes macrodon), the crab eating frog (Fejervarya cancrivora) and the American bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana). These populations are dwindling due to the change from seasonal harvest for local consumption, to year round international trade.
"About half of all listed amphibians are threatened with extinction. We are adding a huge burden through over harvesting," said Bradshaw, "[as] most of our harvesting is from their wild populations and not from their farmed ones."
Curbing demand
The researchers behind the study argue that measures need to be put in place to raise awareness and curb demand. Bradshaw said that control and regulation schemes, similar to those used for crocodile skins in Australia, are the next step. These programs would collect data and monitor the numbers of frogs being used for human consumption.
The United Nations' Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is already set up to ensure that international trade of animals and plants does not threaten their survival, but it doesn't yet offer protection to many dwindling species of frogs.
