“It’s like a good plague,” read the tweet from one of my NPR station’s editors. Epic floods across the Midwest this summer, which more than one local official referred to as “biblical,” brought a wave of frogs and toads to Missouri.
It is hard to overstate how much water inundated my adopted state, and the rest of middle America, in 2019. The New York Times did a good job of showing the so-called slow-motion disaster on a geographic scale, here. I live here, and it is difficult to fathom.
But the frogs helped bring it home. And they gave me a new perspective on this new world we have ushered in, unspooling even now at our feet.
There were a ton of toads, you see. A flock of frogs. (An army, actually.) A frigging lot of amphibians. Even species that are rare in Missouri, like the Great Plains toad, were suddenly common, the NPR station reported. Biologists are really excited, but to me it seems like kind of a mixed bag.
The frogs and toads are here because there was so much water, in so many new pools on so many flooded riverbanks, and all the water came because the climate is changing. Warmer air holds more moisture and means rain can come more often and for longer periods, and so it did, the rain came and it stayed, and the Mississippi River swelled beyond its banks. That meant the frogs (and toads) had ample spots to lay their eggs. The larvae had lots of places to hide and then grow into tadpoles and become fully fledged frogs. (And toads.)
It was a banner year, according to the NPR station. One biologist has studied frogs in Missouri for two decades and only ever found a handful of Great Plains toads. This year he found several hundred within 15 minutes, in one person’s yard.
I am honestly unsure how to feel about all this. Am I supposed to be excited? Or should I be alarmed?
Is it ok if I’m both?
I am working hard in 2019 to be grateful for what I have, which is a lot, and more than many; I know I am fortunate. But sometimes welcoming joy, patting the seat next to you and inviting it to sit, can feel like cheating on the empty spaces. It is this way with climate change, too, for me. Missouri had a boatload of amphibians this year for reasons that are probably mostly bad. Right?
Granted, it’s not bad for the frogs (or toads) and not bad for me or my neighbors—the amphibians will eat a lot of mosquitoes and flies, which were also super abundant this year. Am I allowed to be happy about the frogs? I mean, who doesn’t like frogs (and toads?) Their abundance is like crepuscular rays of sunshine spilling from beneath the dark, ominous cloud of climate change. There are silver linings everywhere, I guess, I hope.
I think it’s good to embrace what is left. It might be all we have to love. So I think I will be happy for the frogs (and toads). I can mourn the endlings, but also try to be thankful for the survivors, whatever creatures are lucky enough to exploit all these new ecological niches. Is it all right if I embrace the coming age of the jellyfish? They are so beautiful. I think Mary Oliver might be OK with it.
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Image: Great Plains toad, by Krista Lundgren/USFWS/via Wikimedia Commons
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