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Christmas Trees Sold With Live Ornaments
Hawkeye320, CVNThis represents Hawkeye's second story for us. It is an interesting one and continues a new section for us here at Cybertown Virtual News. It's been a while since we had a writer on scientific endeavors.-editor
Forget the plastic icicles, brightly colored balls, and tinsel. Some christmas trees in Alaska , the Anchorage area, are adorned with something truly different this holiday season. Live Pacific Chorus frogs. While the small frogs are cute, measuring only an inch or two with lovely moss - colored green sides with black spots, state officials are asking residents to practice tough love ...
If you find a christmas tree frog, kill it.. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has received reports of two amphibious hitchikers. One of them was hiding out on a holiday tree from Washingtion State that was sold through an Anchorage tree nursery. That frog ended up in the biology department at the University of Alaska at Anchorage.
The biology department identified that hitchhiker as a Pacific Chorus frog, said a zoologist with the university's Alaska Natural Heritage Program. These frogs are found all the way from British Columbia to Southern Baja Califorina, but are not native to Alaska.
Their fear is that these cute frogs, whose joyful chorus is often use in movie soundtracks, could be carrying some ugly viruses and fungie, including chytridfungus which is devastating amphibians around the world.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game are suggesting two methods of dispatch: death by a dab of Orajel applied to the head (apparently knocks them out for good), or putting the little critter in a plastic bag and placing the bag in the freezer. And, yes, there is a third option.
The immediate concern is that residents might decide to keep their cute little foundling as a pet over the winter, If they keep it, they must keep it forever... Alaska Department of Fish and Game doesn't want Pacific Chorus frogs released into the wild. Tammy Davis, leader of Fish and Game's Invasive Species Programs, said the Alaska Natural Heritage Program will accept live frogs as well.
The frog invasion highlights a potentially serious problem for Alaska. While the state requries that trees be inspected for any pests prior to shipment, it is scrooge like when dedicating resources to make sure the trees arrive pest free. Unlike some states, Alaska doesn't require that imported trees to be mechanically shaken and it doesn't have a shaker of its own. Tammy Davis said she has doubts about tree shaking.
Trees are bound when they are shipped. Even with shaking a tree, if there is some little critter in the branches, it is not going to be shaken out. Frogs are known to hang on for dear life.
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