Bullfrog in the Morning

In my West Virginia childhood, the bullfrog was a delicacy of spring.  In Oregon, bullfrogs are an invasive species.  This morning, while walking Berkeley, I heard my first bullfrog of the season.

When I was growing up, I always looked forward to bullfrog season.  First, in early spring we would begin hearing the bullfrog calls (always at night).  We would sit outside on the porch just to listen to them.  Then, sometime in June, the legally sanctioned season for hunting bullfrogs would begin.  Regardless of the duration specified by law, the season had a practical duration of one night. And that's assuming that poachers hadn't cleaned out all the frogs before the season officially began.

At sundown on the appointed night, my mother, dad, and I would assemble in our old, leaky wooden john boat.  (Google it, if you don't know what a john boat is.)  Daddy, in the bow, would handle the flashlight and the gig (a small, three-pronged trident/spear on a long wooden handle); Mother, in the middle, was in charge of the burlap bag; and I, in the stern, would paddle the boat very slowly and close to the shore.  The frogs would sit just at the edge of the water, often partially submerged.  Paddling technique was super important:  Not so close as to scare the frog, not so distant that Daddy's gig couldn't reach its mark, not so fast as to skim past the prey before Daddy could aim and act.  After Daddy speared a frog (poor thing), he would swing the gig around and deposit the frog in the burlap bag that was my Mother's responsibility.  Mother had to put the new frog in the bag and strip it off the gig, while not losing any of the frogs already in the bag.  Sometimes that was quite a dance.  Yes, they would try to escape.  Wouldn't you?

While this is all a vivid and positive memory of my childhood, I should also mention that (1) I was really afraid of frogs, for no particular reason except their movements tend to be fast and erratic, and (2) I was also afraid of bats, which would dive bomb us as we boated along the river's edge at night.  It was all worth it, however, because I loved frog.  Mother would make me fresh frog (legs, body, and all) for breakfast the next morning.  We would also have one big frog dinner as a result of our efforts.  And that would be it for the season.  Unfortunately, that night would also mark the end of the frog chorus for the year.

Now, I live near the Willamette River and when I walk Berkeley I often hear bullfrogs in the spring and summer mornings.  They don't seem to understand they're supposed to wait until night to make their racket, which I believe are mating calls.  Perhaps their daytime bravado has to do with a lack of predators.

As I understand it, bullfrogs were imported to Oregon as a business venture in the 1920s. When the businesses failed, the bullfrogs did not.  Since the natural elements necessary to keep them in check are lacking here, bullfrogs have been labelled as an invasive species.  They have become amphibian kudzu.

This morning's bullfrog call reminded me that it is spring, almost June.  Despite their awful reputation locally, I feel nostalgic every time I hear a bullfrog.  Perhaps I'll never be a true Oregonian.