This story from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-14/invasive-frog-captured-tasmania-port-arthur-lavender-farm/104811356
An iNat observation of a frog in Tasmania
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/256364021
sparked a hunt because the frog is from mainland Australia and shouldn’t be in Tasmania.
That’s so cool!
Thanks for sharing that good news
And the frog ?
Deported back to Australia, she had no papers.
Wonderful story!
I always knew Tasmania wasn’t really Australia!..?
I heard she was foreigner, at least a tad Pole
You win ;~))
They don’t specify in the article, but there’s a photo of it alive in a container, so hopefully it’s off to live in an enclosure somewhere. I know sometimes the ‘headquarters’ for people who deal in capturing nonnative animals will have some of the captured animals as pets.
What are the odds that it is one and only one frog at this location? Seems some monitoring might be warranted to make sure this was indeed a lone waif.
While farming their lavender, now they know about The Frog - I am sure they would notice - but wait, there’s more!
Repatriate!
Repatriating amphibians would generally be a bad idea due to the high potential for disease transmission and the potential to move genes around unnecessarily.
Repatriation is generally only done in cases where the species is rare/threatened and individuals have a high value to the population. That isn’t the case here as the frog species is fairly common where it is found.
Repatriation can also be quite expensive as individuals need to have disease screening and potentially treatment. Many individuals would also need to have their DNA sequenced to ID a source area/region if the source locality is unknown (as seems to be the case here). This method for finding source populations is only workable if existing sequence data exists across a good chunk of a species’ range, so it isn’t doable for many species.
Are you serious? This isn’t a joking matter for those dealing with immigration issues.
I’m sorry if this was a sensitive issue. I read it as a joke because Tasmania is a state of Australia, not a separate country.
Thanks for the clarification, I always try to assume the best intent, but it’s a global issue that I’m not sure anyone is unaware exists, unless they aren’t paying much attention or don’t care.
Australia has a particularly fraught immigration history from what I’ve gathered, but I’m here in the U.S. so I’m not casting stones, but pointing out that it is a serious issue.
I thought it was funny :)
Nothing wrong with jokes based on real life issues, as long as they aren’t malicious in nature, which that one obviously wasn’t
But there is a difference between laughing at, and laughing with.
Am I queuing with you for a visa?