Jumping Chicken (Frog Meat Trade)

A few days back when I was browsing Facebook, I stumbled upon an interesting cartoon. It was about frog meat industry. I got interested and tried to find out more. A little bit of searching and reading brought out some anxious facts.

image courtesy: http://www.savethefrogs.com

In contrary to my belief that only tribal and rural people eats frogs, it is a delicacy among the people of 1st world countries. Even they have depleted their frog population so much that they are forced to import it from third world countries of Latin America and South-east Asia. Currently Indonesia is the biggest exporter of frog legs. It exports about 142 million frogs each year and about 7times of this number is consumed in the country. Thailand, China, Malaysia, Brazil and several other countries also exports frog legs. Frog legs are popular in south east Asian countries but they are in huge demand in countries like France, Italy, USA etc. even Mr. Barak Obama was seen eating frog legs in a party. This demand has resulted in the disappearance of many frog species and several other species have become rare. A few countries have set up frog farms to supply the demand but still most of the frogs come from the wild.

image courtesy: Getty images

What is the actual impact of this? A few years back India was the biggest exporter of frog legs. This trade was so popular that frogs were called jumping chicken. But India has banned this trade in 1987. Bangladesh has also banned it in 1990. They must have good reasons to so. This frog meat trade does not affect all frog species. It only targets the bigger species. In India, the targeted species were Indian Pond Frog(Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis), Indian Bull Frog(Hoplobatrachus tigerinus), Jerdon’s Bull Frog(Hoplobatrachus crassus). Frogs are a natural insecticide. They eat a whole lot of insects, molluscs and other things that damages our crop production. And the bigger the frog, the more insect it can eat. Not only in frog stage, in the tadpole stage also it helps us by cleaning up the water. Now when we picked up frogs from the environment, the insect population multiplied considerably and crop damage also have increased. The problem became so severe in India that the revenue lost due to crop damage far exceeded the revenue generated through frog leg exporting. Same thing has happened with Bangladesh and same thing will happen with the other countries too. Frogs are an important part of our eco-system and removing them from it is not a wise decision.

Indian Bull Frog

15yrs after banning the trade, frog population in India has revived itself and the species are not in danger anymore. But thanks to Mr. Manjunath Sullolli an image from Goa brings out the question again, “has the trade really stopped in India?” Actually as long as there will be demand in the market, some people will always be ready to supply. If only we can change our taste for frog meat, the frogs can really be saved.

image courtesy: Mr. Manjunath Sullolli