Wave of illegal immigrants hits Louisiana

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On the day Brad Glorioso and his fellow scientists began their hunt for the invasive Cuban treefrog, they weren't sure what they'd find. They'd come to Audubon Zoo in New Orleans after the curator of reptiles and amphibians informed them that several suspicious frogs had been spotted on the premises. The bulky frogs appeared to be an invasive species that had—until now—been confined to Florida.

Cuban treefrogs, which can grow as big as the palm of your hand, compete with native treefrogs for shelter and are create a number of nuisances for people. “They get into the plumbing sometimes and people will find them in their toilets, which is always a surprise,” says Glorioso, an ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Wetland and Aquatic Research Center in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Concerned that the frogs may have taken root in Louisiana, he decided to investigate the zoo and surrounding parklands in the fall of 2017. His fears were confirmed even before the first search was officially underway. While waiting to meet with their collaborator from the zoo, Glorioso and his team discovered 23 Cuban treefrogs wedged behind a utility box on a bathroom wall. “I brought him a whole bucketful,” Glorioso says. “I was like, ‘we got a problem.’”

The researchers went on to capture 367 Cuban treefrogs on just four sweeps of the park between September and November. They had found the first-known breeding population of Cuban treefrogs to invade the mainland United States outside of Florida. The most likely explanation is that the frogs were stowaways on palm trees the zoo ordered from the Sunshine State.

"This is just the beginning," says Glorioso, who reported the findings April 21, 2018, in the journal Biological Invasions. "Once they take over you can pretty much say bye-bye to seeing a lot of native treefrogs."

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