Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Frog buloney on the web

The Uk's "the telegraph" is demonstrating just how bad journalism has become. They have a panic article about "Virus threatens mass extinction of frogs" but don't specify what virus. When I ran a search down I got articles going back to Feb 17, 2007 describing the same "Amphibian Ark" project but in that case it was a fungus not a virus. Still no definite explanation of which fungus or virus or trans-dimensional frog hunter is leading to the extinction of frogs.

We had frogs and toads serenading here well into mid-November, several weeks later than usual.

This project just strikes me as one more special interest boondoggle. Don't get me wrong, I care deeply for the environment and frogs. So much so that I actually work to make sure my farm is nature friendly.

What bugs me is how often we are being poorly informed or just plain misled by the media and so-called specialists. Exactly how many amphibians are dying? Not just "might die" or "could lead to the biggest mass extinction since the dinosaurs" Heck, that'd be like 10 times the number of amphibians that there are in the world. Where are we gonna get these extra frogs from before we can extinct them?

3 comments:

Rae Ann said...

There was a good comment at TRF about how newspaper articles are chosen for publication.

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/lumidek/4442627045020644715/?src=hsrs#964926

I don't usually agree with this commenter, but this one is pretty revealing.

Jeff said...

This is the fungus that's killing them: http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/npws.nsf/Content/Frog+Chytrid+fungus

Also, if you have 10 minutes to spare, watch this video. Hope this helps answer questions about the crisis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baClbjVWn2I

Guy said...

Thanks Rae, as usual your comments are salient.

Jeff, you on the other hand are the typical obtuse shit. We've heard all the alarmist garbage we need from Al Gore why don't you give it a rest?

There is no crisis, just the natural progression of event and circumstance. 99% of all species that have ever lived on this planet were extinct long before man came along. If the frogs can't adapt they must perish.