French Snipers Target Frogs

[matcom]

<snip>

PICTURE this: French hunters stealing out at night in pairs, one with a torch to light up the eyes of their prey, the other armed with a .22 calibre rifle equipped with a telescopic sight and a silencer.

Their quarry? Invaders from the United States - bullfrogs, to be precise, that bellow like cows and typically weigh in at a hefty 600 grams.
This is France, to be sure, but the end game of this hunt is not sauteed frog legs.

These marksmen are ecologists, out to exterminate the bullfrogs - a.k.a. Rana Catesbeina - which are threatening the local ecosystem.

"A man living in Vayres (30 kilometres, 20 miles east of Bordeaux) stocked his pond with them in 1968 as a joke, and a few years later every stretch of water in the region was full of them," said Luc Gueugneau, who works in the government agency overseeing wild animals and hunting.

The bullfrogs live for as long as nine years, hibernating from October to March, but the rest of the time gorging on local frogs, shellfish, insects, and even fledgling birds, said ecologist Mathieu Detaint.

They have virtually no predators, and each lay up to 25,000 eggs a year, against 10,000 laid by the local frogs.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16342350-13762,00.html

[Deja Q]

1. Okay, who saw that episode of 'The Simpsons' where Bart introduces frogs

to Australia and decided to do the same thing?

Oh, and do the French eat the frogs once they're done playing William Tell? :D

[jody]

2. I hope no one introduces Kudzu to France. n/t