Dead frogs in ontario pond

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Why did all my frogs die this winter. My pond has a small heater so the ice will have a hole in it all winter. When I was cleaning around the pond this spring I noticed the frogs had burrowed into the cattails just below water level and they were all dead. With the winter we've had it Thawed and froze quite a bit. My pond is 3 feet deep. Fish are all fine
 
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there is a fungus killing amphibians world wide, it might have hit your area. Talk to your local wildlife folks and ask. The other options are that the swings in temps did them in, or that they may not be dead, but still in hibernation. Not sure what your weather is like now, but I was just hearing that northUS is getting snow still.
 
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They may have just been very stressed this year, it went from cold to warm a lot this year. Make sure they are dead, they can freeze almost solid and still survive, they will seem dead hibernating.
 
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Maybe where they burrowed(in the cattails) was too shallow and they froze.
Frogs usually bury themselves deep under water in substrate that won't freeze solid.
If your pond didn't have anything deep to burrow into then they burrowed into the only thing they could find, too shallow in the cattails.
 
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Thanks for the advice and ideas. These frogs were pink when I found them, but they were mushy and bloated. Could they have been alive? It looked to me like they froze and thawed a few times.
 
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Thanks for the advice and ideas. These frogs were pink when I found them, but they were mushy and bloated. Could they have been alive? It looked to me like they froze and thawed a few times.
Frog shouldn’t be mushy. That’s dead. Ewwww.... My husband just asked what caused my face, and I had to explain about your dead frogs.
 
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We find a few dead ones in our pond every year. I think they either get caught short when the water gets cold in fall or they try to come out too soon in the spring. Either way, where two are gone, 20 more will follow. We have a bullfrog in our pond already this year the size of a softball. He rivals any of the bullfrogs we've had in the past for size AND the sound of his croak - Big Bubba is what we're calling him!

And I know some people don't like having bullfrogs in their pond. We don't mind. Yes, they eat most of the other frogs. Yes they sometimes eat birds. But nature allows for all of that. Once he's cleared us out, he'll move on. We just enjoy him while he's here.
 
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I found 3 dead ones too! Poor lil froggys
smsad3.gif
 
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thanks. i will assume this is nature taking its course and hope more will come
 
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Im am in Niagara and I had a bubbler running no heater. Last saturday saw first frog of tje season and by monday I had 7.
 

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