Man tried to save army of 3 million frogs from polluted pond but what happened next was unexpected

On TikTok, @thinfrog's videos have gone viral: after finding millions of frog eggs in a polluted pond, this user decided to take these frogs under his wing, by transporting them to his garden. He says he wants to build an army with all these frogs... But his action will not necessarily be without consequences for the local fauna and flora.

1.4 million frogs

In February, a teenager from the UK discovered millions of frog eggs in a pond near his home. Polluted and on the verge of drying out, the pond in question was not going to be a very hospitable home for the frogs about to be born.

So @thinfrog decided to save them. All of them. And when we say 'all', we mean 1.4 million frogs! On TikTok, he shares his journey and shows, step by step, the evolution of the frogs, going from embryos to tadpoles to finally becoming frogs in good and due form. But releasing so many frogs into the wild is not a trivial matter. Quoted by the Guardian, biologist Tierra Curry says:

Instead of helping, [These TikTok users] are actually hurting the animals they’re releasing and all the animals in the environment that they’re releasing them into – it’s creating a vector for disease and invasive species

A danger to the ecosystem

In the more recent videos, we can see that the frogs have grown and are swarming in the TikToker's garden... but also in his neighbourhood. If these more recent posts are authentic, the situation seems uncontrollable, and we have difficulty understanding how a person can control so many frogs.

Obviously, the success of the @thinfrog account is not denied, but are a few likes really worth the risk?

Frog Army, 2023 edition

Not content with having made a monumental buzz last year @thinfrog plans to do it again in 2023. He even plans to double the number of frogs. In a recent video, he announced that he had collected 2.8 million eggs. 'I just hope my frog-phobic neighbour doesn't have a heart attack,' he said.

This article was translated from Gentside FR.

Sources used:

TikTok

The Guardian: 'TikTok ‘frog army’ stunt could have grave consequences, experts warn'