Well, it took quite a few emails and a couple of phone calls but I finally got “unofficial” permission to release the froglets to the wild. The Massachusetts Audubon Society identified Tiny Greene as a woodfrog before his untimely death, and woodfrogs are native to Massachusetts.
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Apparently it’s also illegal to sell woodfrog eggs over the internet so I contacted the distributor to find out why their packing slip said that the froglets needed to be “destroyed” and give them a heads-up that the MAS was about to drop the bomb on them. The woman there couldn’t have been nicer, and she said that they don’t coordinate which shipment goes to which location and whether what they’re shipping is native to that area, so that’s why their info says not to release them.
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Then I called the Needham Science Center to find out where the froglets would like to live, and although she couldn’t give me official permission to release them because they might have a fungus or something from being in the lab, she told me that they like sheltered ponds.
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Aliya and I took the first batch last week, and we found a great new home for them in Farm Pond across the street from the school. My shoe got sucked off when I stepped in a swampy area disguised as a safe place to step, but at least it wasn’t quicksand. I used to have nightmares about quicksand as a kid. The other two classes wanted to keep their tadpoles until the last day of school, so I released the rest in the rain on Monday.
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I don’t know how long they’ll survive in their new home but it’s better than euthanizing them. What’s a new pair of Merrills when lives are at stake?
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