Attempting to save tadpoles on Memorial Day

Arlo and I spent a lot of time at Riverside Park today; running around the playground, picking up glass along the banks of the Huron river, and watching super-enthusiastic baby geese practice their diving. [We also got to see what appeared to be an epic battle between a great blue heron and a family of geese.] It was pretty idyllic. Over the four hours we spent hanging around the park, we saw two groups of kayakers pass by, a pack of college students float along on rafts, a father and son actually swimming, about a dozen people fishing, and probably about 100 kids dropping by to check out the recently opened Liz Dahl MacGregor Playground. I’ve been spending time in Riverside Park for over a quarter century now, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so vibrant. Everywhere you looked, there were couples on blankets, people walking dogs, and families chasing kids. And, before anyone suggests that what I saw was just the most recent manifestation of gentrification, I should add that it was probably also the most diverse group I’ve ever seen sharing the park at the same time. And everyone appeared to be having a great time together.

OK, with all of that said, there was one thing that wasn’t exactly perfect. When walking around the park, Arlo and I stumbled across a big puddle that was absolutely teeming with tadpoles, which appeared to us to be about a week old, meaning that they wouldn’t be losing their tails and becoming frogs for another six weeks or so. So, Arlo and I, as we sat there, watching them, began to discuss what might happen to them if this tiny pool of water in the middle of the park should dry up before they’d completed their metamorphosis. And, by the end of that conversation, we’d decided to walk home, get a jar, and come back to collect some of them.

[You can see video of the tadpoles here.]

I know, in the whole scheme of things, it may not be that impactful, as few tadpoles make it to frogdom anyway, and, of those that do, most are probably eaten before they even have an opportunity to mate. But, as I was just telling my friend Jean, I suspect that most tadpoles, if you’d ask them, would rather have a chance to meet their ends as frogs in the river than die as froglets in a dried-out puddle. So, with that in mind, we took home a few dozen, thinking that, one day, if we’re lucky, we might be able to bring a few fully-realized frogs back to the banks of the Huron River to eat bugs, make love, and enjoy life.

Even if we don’t get any that make it all the way to frogdom, I’m thinking that it’ll at least give Arlo and I an opportunity to talk about the place frogs hold in our ecosystem, the stages that tadpoles have to go through on their journey to becoming frogs, and the threats they face at each stage, not just from fish and birds, but from the amphibian fungus (“the most deadly pathogen known to science”) that has been decimating their global populations for these past several decades. I don’t know that Arlo and I will keep it up, but we started an audio diary about our tadpoles, and we’re talking about drawing pictures of them tomorrow evening after school. [Hopefully they don’t all die tonight.]

So, why am I mentioning this? Well, I thought that maybe some of you, especially if you’ve got inquisitive little kids at home, might want to consider doing the same thing… I can’t think of a cheaper, more compelling way to engage with kids on the environment.

One more thing… I was going to repost something that I’d written about Memorial Day on this site 16 year ago, all about how I didn’t feel terribly patriotic under the Bush administration. It wasn’t a great post by any means, but I thought that it would give me an opportunity to think through why it is that I’ve felt so much more patriotic since the dawning of the Trump era. [“In spite of” Trump, not “due to” Trump.] But then it occurred to me that I’d rather not think about Donald Trump after such a great day, and that I could just write about frogs instead.

If it’s not clear from the above, I love frogs. In fact, if I make it to retirement age, I’m thinking that a good deal of my time will be spend building and tending to a frog pond in my backyard.

Oh, and this is our new, awesome park… Thank you again for everyone who had a hand in making it happen. [Does anyone still remember the broken and sad playground equipment that used to be near the entrance to the park a few decades ago?]

[If you do decide to take some tadpoles home, you can found out how to care for them here.]