By Don
Thompson
Published: May 17, 2003
The Associated Press
ANGELS CAMP -- John Hand's Oregon Frog Team hauls a semitrailer
hundreds of miles from Sweet Home, Ore., each May to the Calaveras
County Fair and Frog Jumping Jubilee inspired by Mark Twain
in this old Sierra gold mining town.
His team spends three nights catching 300 bullfrogs from
20 California locations, housing them in a "frog hotel"
inside the insulated trailer stenciled with giant leaping
frogs and the team's five championship wins.
About 150 of the most energetic frogs are used in four days
of competition. Then, the carefully labeled frogs are returned
to the same ponds and sloughs from which they were plucked
by hand and flashlight a few nights earlier.
It's a recipe for ecological disaster.
"Bringing a whole group of diverse populations together
and then spreading them out again is a perfect model for spreading
disease, as it is in humans," said Ed Pert, fisheries
programs chief for the California Department of Fish and Game.
Pert and department biologist Stafford Lehr were touring
the 75th annual contest this week, seeking ways to minimize
the potential spread of disease and avoid seeding the aggressive
nonnative bullfrogs into the few remaining locations where
native red-legged and yellow-legged frogs survive.
They're particularly worried about the iridio virus, commonly
known as "red-legged disease," that can spread among
all three populations. And about Chytrid fungus that attacks
the keratin in frog's skin and is believed to stunt development
and make the frogs susceptible to other diseases and infections.
The pathogens could devastate Sierra Nevada amphibian populations
already hard-hit by everything from habitat loss to wind-blown
pesticides.
The wildlife officials are less worried about major competitors
like Hand -- particularly after examining his state-of-the-art
operation Thursday -- than they are families who might catch
a few frogs on the way to the contest. It's particularly worrisome
if the family simply dumps the frogs back into any old pond
or ditch on the way home.
Biologists are so careful in the field that they wash down
their equipment with alcohol and an ammonia solution before
entering any new waterway.
That's not possible at the jumping contest that draws about
2,000 bullfrogs and more than 40,000 visitors, and has become
a major economic engine in Calaveras County, 90 miles east
of San Francisco.
Returning frogs to nature is illegal under California law
-- except for an obscure 1957 provision in the Fish and Game
Code that specifically exempts frog-jumping contests. So wildlife
officers have been simply asking for -- and receiving -- cooperation
from contest operators and contestants.
Signs posted around the competition stages tell contestants
they can return their frogs to the reed-lined pond at the
fairgrounds. Green fliers handed out to contestants urge them
to be "be frog-friendly" and turn their frogs over
to fair organizers after the event.
But the wildlife officials were generally reassured after
inspecting Hand's operation and the "frog condo"
below the main stage where about 300 "rent-a-frogs"
collected by fair organizers are kept separate from other
competitors.
The only contact between diverse populations is during the
competition itself, where in rapid-fire order frogs are placed
on the same fake green "lily pad" to make their
leaps. The frog that goes the farthest in three leaps -- with
their human "frog jockeys" whooping and hopping
behind them -- wins.
Ideally, the pad and stage would be disinfected between jumps,
but Pert and Lehr haven't found a disinfectant that isn't
potentially harmful to frogs, humans or nearby electronic
equipment. And the stage would be easier to hose down between
jumps if it wasn't covered in carpet. But conditions must
be kept the same from year to year to avoid compromising the
world record 21 foot, 53/4-inch triple jump set by Rosie the
Ribiter in 1986.
"It's the big one," said Hand, who's been bringing
his team from northeast of Eugene since 1969. He caught the
frog-jumping fever four years earlier after he entered an
Oregon contest at his mother's urging and won.
Now he treats frog jumping like a science, keeping his frogs
cool in handmade plastic boxes in the insulated trailer. They're
warmed in the sun under Plexiglas to keep them from escaping.
Come competition time, they're put into numbered, slotted
boxes so a team statistician can note each frog's leap for
future reference.
At the moment of truth, Hand gently stretches each frog to
its full length -- most of the huge bullfrogs are longer than
his forearm -- then dips it in a tub of warm water before
handing it to whichever frog jockey is on deck.
He tried a new innovation this year, a plastic tube to keep
competing frogs centered on the lily pad until their jump.
But contest judges ruled the contraption was an illegal use
of equipment.
"He thinks frogs 24-7," said Mark Whitton, of Bend,
Ore., who's been part of Hand's team since he was 18. That
was 26 years ago, and now Whitton's 13-year-old son Jordan
also has joined this year's 15-member team as a frog jockey
in the junior division.
The contest has been an annual event since 1928, when the
local booster club organized the first jump to celebrate the
paving of Main Street. It harkens back to the tall tale Twain
heard in the Angels Hotel and published in 1865 as "The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."
"I betcha Mark Twain is laughing his tail off,"
said fair manager and unofficial Frogtown Mayor Warren "Buck"
King. "He created all this just from a little short story,
his first published work. Now look at all this controversy
and environmental concerns.
"I hope he's proud of the way we're handling this."
Reprinted from http://www.insidevc.com/vcs/state/article/0,1375,VCS_122_1968881,00.html
