ABC News Nightline The Deformed Frogs: One Step Closer to Solving the Mystery

ABC News Nightline The Deformed Frogs: One Step Closer to Solving the Mystery Review

During the summer of 1997, there was growing concern in Minnesota, Vermont and Quebec over the discovery of quite a few deformed frogs. In Minnesota alone, deformed frogs were discovered at 85 sites in 21 counties. There was any number of theories on what caused the deformities but no conclusions. Over that summer, significant abnormalities in frogs were also found in Wisconsin, Missouri, New York, Connecticut, Oregon, Washington and California. Most of the scientific attention is still focused on Minnesota, where deformed frogs have now been discovered at 85 sites in 21 counties.

ABC News Nightline Frogs: What are they really telling us?

ABC News Nightline Frogs: What are they really telling us? Review

It's easy enough to dismiss frogs as either cute or repulsive depending on your point of view, but they do get around. They tend to breed in shallow water, they hop around and feed on the landscape as mature adults and depending on the season, they also feed in deeper waters, rivers and lakes. For a variety of reasons, frogs are good biological barometers, early warning systems of possible dangers in the environment. If frogs begin showing signs of distress, it could be only a matter of time before other species are affected, including humans. What seemed at first like a freakish quirk of nature, the appearance of a few truly deformed frogs, has now occurred in a dozen states and the Biological Resources Division of the US Geological Survey set up a Web site with background information, photographs and maps. They're concerned enough that they want Americans to be on the look out.