A Meat and Dairy Article from All-Creatures.org

The Expanding Frog Trade

From MovingAnimals.org
September 2024

Research shows that the huge rate of consumption is playing a role in ecosystem collapse, species extinction, and helping spread disease epidemics throughout the world. It is also causing untold suffering to the billions of frogs themselves. But despite the growth, the potential ecological impact of frog farms is often neglected and over-exploitation of wild-caught frogs is ongoing.

Frog slaughterhouse

Frog farming is often forgotten, and overlooked as just a 'French delicacy.' In reality, anywhere between one to three billion frogs are slaughtered every year and are consumed worldwide, with huge numbers being consumed in the US and across Asia and Europe (due to complex supply chains and conflicts of interest, accurate tracking of frog harvests is challenging).

Research shows that the huge rate of consumption is playing a role in ecosystem collapse, species extinction, and helping spread disease epidemics throughout the world. It is also causing untold suffering to the billions of frogs themselves. But despite the growth, the potential ecological impact of frog farms is often neglected and over-exploitation of wild-caught frogs is ongoing. This decline reverberates across local ecosystems, given that frogs play a pivotal role in insect population control. In regions where amphibians become targets of hunting, researchers have observed a surge in toxic pesticides.

There is no doubt that the trade in frogs’ legs for consumption is a global issue, with most countries involved in the trade as exporter, importer or some combination. Americans eat 20% of the world's frog legs, and soon the United States is likely to overtake France and Belgium as the world's largest consumer of frog legs.

The appetite for frogs has already driven species to the brink of extinction in countries from France to India, with bans on their wild capture in these countries in place. In recent decades, there have been four major source regions exporting edible frogs or body parts (wild and/or farmed): East Asia, (China and Taiwan), Southeast Asia (Indonesia and Vietnam), South Asia (India and Bangladesh).

....

Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE INCLUDING MANY PHOTOS.

Frogs' legs, image from Tomas Castelazo, Wikimedia Commons

---

Posted on All-Creatures.org: September 14, 2024
Return to Meat and Dairy Articles
Read more at Wildlife Articles
Read more at Environment Articles