I seem to see quite a lot of photos on iNaturalist of people holding frogs with their bare hands. I have been told that this is a potentially dangerous thing to do as their skin may absorb substances that are toxic to them. As some of the people handling frogs with bare hands seem to be frog experts though, I am wondering if what I was told is true, or a fallacy? I have held frogs bare handed in the past but since being told have stopped, as I have no wish to potentially endanger creatures that already have enough human caused problems to deal with. If it is a danger to them, how can we best educate iNaturalist users.
Hi Andy,
Have you read this recent thread?
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/unethical-posts/
I’m a herpetologist and have seen/heard mixed evidence on this. There’s clear evidence that handling amphibians with something nasty (like bug spray) on your hands is bad. Clean hands seems less serious. But there’s also evidence that some types of gloves aren’t good for amphibians either. Handling multiple amphibians without washing hands/changing gloves can lead to disease transmission. My advice for handling amphibians is:
Only handle them when needed for some specific, beneficial purpose. I generally don’t handle amphibians now unless it is for research/work or I need to capture them to ID or to educate someone. I try to get any pics including key features without handling if I can.
One other note is that even moving between amphibian sites can transmit disease. If people are moving between sites, bleaching boots/footwear can help, see:
https://parcplace.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Bletz.etal_.2023_NEPARCdecon1.pdf
Thanks Adam. That thread was very helpful.
Thanks Chris. You have made things much clearer for me and your good practice suggestions make perfect sense. I’d like to think that the majority of the photos I’ve seen are from people who when handling frogs are taking care to wash their hands.
Hi! I actually own tree frogs, and I usually avoid touching them out of habit. However, if it is necessary to handle them, it is generally okay as long as you do not have a lot of bad chemicals on your hands (like what @cthawley said). There are oils in your hands that are not good for the frogs’ skin, so taking steps to avoid contact should be your first priority. In addition, amphibians with very wet mucous layers may absorb chemicals more readily and can dry out easily on your hands, which act like sponges. I believe something similar happens to fish.
If you must handle an amphibian, you can likely use unpowdered nitrile gloves (NOT latex, as my research has come to show), or rinsing your hands with dechlorinated water. Chlorine, which is added in one of the final steps of the water filtration process, is used to kill bacteria in our tap and drinking water. I use a store-bought dechlorinating solution, but if you’re out in the field, washing your hands off in a creek or pond would be best. Remember to never touch amphibians if you put dangerous chemicals on your hands, since you can’t easily wash those off in a creek (that’s bad for the environment anyway). Hope this helps!
Great advice, thanks for sharing your knowledge Joey.
I don’t have much experience with frogs, but I think my experience with salamanders can help answer this question a bit! Being amphibians, salamanders have a similar issue where their skin is really sensitive and absorbent.
I really enjoy looking for salamanders, but I always try to avoid touching them directly, if possible. If I see one in a cliff crevice, I’ll just photograph it without touching it; same thing if I catch one in my dipnet. I don’t really see any reason to touch them if I can avoid it. I don’t mind getting photos that are just “identifiable” and not “professional-level”, so I don’t feel the need to pose the salamander or anything.
The main situation where I’ll touch a salamander, though, is if I find it while flipping rocks, logs, or other cover. This is because it’s important to put these cover items back in place to avoid disturbing the habitat, but I need to move the salamander out of the way first to avoid crushing it.
However, I always make sure my hands are free from any foreign substances like hand sanitizer, sunscreen, soap, lotion, etc, before I go looking for salamanders. While the oil on our skin itself can be damaging if handling a salamander for too long, foreign substances like these are even more harmful.
While moving the salamander, I sometimes take ~10 seconds to take a few photos of it in my hand. In this case, I leave a note in the description that I handled the salamander briefly with my hands free from substances like lotion. I do this to avoid giving anyone the impression that it’s okay to handle salamanders without taking proper precautions.
However, there is a lot of debate in the herping community about what’s ethical and what’s not. In my opinion, it’s good to photograph salamanders and frogs to contribute to science, but it’s important to always take precautions like the ones I mentioned above to avoid causing any harm. There are definitely unethical people out there who don’t take precautions, and people who just don’t know that there are precautions they should be taking in the first place. I fell into the latter category as a kid who enjoyed looking for frogs, and I feel a bit bad about it looking back, even though I just didn’t know.
So, in summary, I think it’s okay to briefly (~20-30 seconds or less) handle amphibians as long as you don’t have any substances on your hands, are doing it for a specific purpose (like moving them out of the way or photographing them to contribute to science via inat), avoid handling threatened species, and, ideally, leave a small note in the description of your observation to let viewers know that the organism was handled ethically. Again, though, there is a lot of debate about this topic, so it’s important to do your own research and decide whether you want to handle amphibians and how you’re going to avoid harming them :)
Hopefully this was helpful! I know it was more salamander-centered, but I think a lot of it applies to frogs as well!
I think it’s up to you whether you want to educate other iNat users on this topic. It would be helpful, but some people might get combative, so you can decide whether it would be worth it to you.
I think going to the person’s profile first would be a good idea so that you can look at their bio and see whether they mention anything about being a herpetologist, biologist, or another person who has good reason to handle frogs and knows what they’re doing.
If they’re not one of those people, you could probably say something like:
“Hello! Just a heads up that it’s best to avoid handling amphibians if possible! Their skin is very sensitive and absorbent, so the oils from our skin can be harmful to them if they’re handled for too long. It should be okay to handle them briefly, though (~20 seconds or less), as long as your hands are free from substances like sunscreen, lotion, bug spray, etc. Have a good day!”
Obviously you could change the message to your own wording, but it would probably be good to keep it lighthearted, include an explanation of why it’s best to avoid handling amphibians, and explain how, if necessary, they can handle them in a way that’s less likely to be harmful.
I almost never handle frogs. I find it is usually easy to get good photos of them without handling. One exception is when they are on a road and I need to remove them fast due to vehicles approaching. I use a bin to keep them in so they are not handled very long. If I can shoo them off of trails or roads, I do that. I find toads are hard to shoo at times, so I sometimes handle them, usually when there are a lot of very small, young toads on a road or trail.
Is it true that handling them with wet hands is better than with dry hands? I usually rub my hands in some mud/water before picking up amphibians so they’re not in such direct contact with whatever oils are on my hands. I don’t know if this is a myth though. (I know there are myths out there perpetuated to discourage people from handling wildlife, like that touching a butterfly’s wings means it can’t fly any more, or touching a bird nest leaves your smell and the mother bird will abandon it- both wrong, but spread with the best of intentions, to keep people who don’t know how to handle wildlife from even touching the creatures)
I have heard that and try to do that as well when possible!
I think this one is actually correct. Not only does wetting your hands in natural water (water found in nature, as opposed to treated water) wash off some of the oils on your skin, but it also makes sure that your hands don’t damage the amphibian’s mucous membrane or dry it out. Just don’t do this with tap water.
Yes, I think this is reasonable. If you’re hands are covered in stream water from right where the individual is, it isn’t being exposed to anything it wouldn’t otherwise have been, so it wouldn’t be doing any harm.
I’ve handled a lot of frogs and toads over the years. Decades ago, the herpetologists I worked with never thought twice about grabbing frogs bare-handed. Of course some of those frogs were going to be preserved as specimens, so … But since chytrid was discovered in many populations, all the frog researchers I know use latex gloves, minimize handling, and sterilize their gear between sites. Times have changed. I don’t grab frogs anymore, just grab photos of frogs.
I’ve handled spadefoots (Spea spp.) bare handed and had an allergic reaction (sneezing, eyes watering) to their secretions, probably after touching my eyes, so the distress can go both ways.
This definitely happened to me with my graduate work on Osteopilus. I got rashes from touching my face with hands after catching them and even lost my fingerprints at one point due to shedding so much skin (though this aided my criminal career…)
Hi birdfishgirl, thanks for sharing your intelligent insights on this subject. I really like that you leave a note in the description of your observations if you have briefly handled a frog to say that it was very quick and that you had taken the appropriate precautions - you are educating people but without the possibility of direct conflict! 
I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet and it’s important: handling wild amphibians is a subset of ‘handling wild animals’. Whether or not they are in danger due to sensitive skin, capturing any animal and handling it is going to stress it out, and carries a risk of direct injury during capture. I recently posted a photo of a frog that was caught by a kid I was camping with and felt a little guilty about it. I wouldn’t encourage kids to capture frogs, just like I wouldn’t encourage them to capture chipmunks or even pick wildflowers if the point was just to briefly look at them or take a picture. Amphibians are particularly sensitive, but the fact that they’re less affected by our skin oils than we might think is sort of beside the point if you’re asking ‘should we encourage handling them’.
In most cases that may be true, but there are also ways to do it that minimize stress. Some animals are also just more predisposed to interact with humans. Chickadees, for example are pretty bold little birds and will come perch on your hand of their own volition for some birdseed. Snakes vary widely in behavior, but the more docile ones like garter snakes can be relative unbothered by handling (though the technique is important. It’s best to allow them to pass from hand to hand rather than try to pin or restrain them). If you do stress them out, they’ll let you know… Garter snakes use extra smelly poop as their defense mechanism. Rough-skinned newts are also pretty docile and very rarely struggle or show signs of stress in my experience (probably because they have no predators due to the toxin in their skins).
Mostly, it just takes some understanding of the specific species’ behavior or of the individual animal’s temperament. Of course, you should definitely back off if the animal starts showing obvious signs that it does not want you near it. Having those positive encouters with animals is important, though. It is one of the most effective ways of allowing people to connect with the world around them and develop that desire to protect nature.