Who is ready to go frog gigging in Canada?

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The recent catch of an enormous bullfrog in a remote Vancouver Island pond has fueled concern that the voracious amphibians are spreading unchecked across the British Columbia island’s landscape.

Russ Schut, who was fishing in tiny Sproat Lake with a worm and bobber, hauled in the 2-foot-long American bullfrog and released it—after posing for a photograph—without knowing that it belonged to an invasive species that threatens native critters.

Because they’re not native to the Canadian southwest and have few natural predators, such as alligators, water snakes, and kingfishers in their native American southeast, some of the bullfrogs are growing to abnormally large sizes.

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“They’re big and voracious,” Gail Walin, of the Invasive Species Council of British Columbia,” told the Alberni Valley Times.

“And when you’ve got a species like that, that can basically out-eat some of the native species; it will take away the forage that native species would use and at times they can be aggressive on other smaller-sized, earlier life-cycle frogs.”

Stan Orchard, a Victoria-based bullfrog hunting contractor, told Canada’s National Post: “They’re eating salamanders and garter snakes and hatchling turtles … songbirds that come down to the water’s edge to drink, baby ducks, waterfowl … everything that will fit into their mouths.”

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