Great Lakes Now recently sat down with Margot Fass of the non-profit group, A Frog House. Located in Pittsfield, New York on the banks of the Erie Canal and on the edge of the Lake Ontario sub-basin. A Frog House helps to encourage ecological education, local advocacy and collaboration around clean water and thriving wetlands. Not only do they help to restore essential habitats through tree planting, but by helping people build frog ponds.
Fass grew up in Vermont, where wetlands weren’t far from her house. According to Fass, being around nature as a kid “saved her life,” and is a huge motivator behind why she started A Frog House.
“There was a lot of chaos within the family, within the house, which explains why I became a psychiatrist,” said Fass. “I was sent to carry the milk home from the nearby farm, and that the vastness of the sky, and distance of the stars, and the peacefulness hearing the frogs chirping, and crickets chirping, and the silence and simultaneous harmony or music of the night — I think really literally saved my life.”
She said it wasn’t the frogs that specifically saved her, but how they were an integral part of the “weavings of nature.” It wasn’t until she started doing art therapy as an adult, that “without any rhyme or reason” she started painting images of frogs. That’s when her late-husband showed her Elizabeth Kolbert’s article “The Sixth Extinction” about the potential mass extinction of this amphibian species.
Now she encourages people to create their own frog pond, which Fass said is really quite easy! Build it out, as big or as small as you like, and they will come. Frogs can detect small or large water bodies from up to a mile away. Another bonus is that this project can be accomplished at any time of the year.
Here are five reasons why everyone should help out our amphibian friends and consider building a pond:
1. Frogs are bioindicators
Frogs serve as early warning signals for environmental health. This is why they are known as an indicator species. What happens to frogs can happen to humans, making their survival important for everyone, according to Fass.
“There are lots of reasons to have a frog pond, and to give you the biggest picture of all, I would say it has to do with climate change,” said Fass. “Any bodies of water that we can have are going to have a cooling effect. They will also control floods and so forth. So a little tiny frog pond isn’t going to do that much in terms of climate, but it’s like the pollinator pathways, I think, that that if we can connect a lot of sustainable gardens, then it makes one big national park… and if we have many, many little ponds that also will help the frogs.”
2. Spiritual and mental peace
Frog ponds create a peaceful, meditative environment. According to Fass, people are naturally drawn to them, and the presence of frogs or water can offer a calming effect. This fosters ecological awareness and connects people to the place where they live. This process, similarly called grounding or earthing, has been shown to have all kinds of health benefits like lowering inflammation and lessening the effects of anxiety and depression.
“We have a little fountain going, and it’s very, very peaceful,” said Fass, about her pond. “People are attracted to come up and sit by the pond and watch the frogs, who are sitting and watching them.”
3. Insect control
Frogs naturally control insects, including mosquitoes, offering an eco-friendly alternative to chemical sprays, which are harmful to both frogs and humans. According to Fass, since putting in her frog pond, she no longer deals with pesky mosquitos in her backyard.
When considering a pond, be sure to avoid the use of Roundup and other harsh chemicals in the area. Roundup has been proven to severely hurt frogs, to the point of mutation. One hypothesis is that frogs view the presence of Roundup as some kind of predator, based on the mutations and how similar they are to when they are in the prolonged presence of a predator.
4. Encouraging compassion and empathy
“I’m concerned in this world about compassion and empathy, and I tried to develop my own sense of compassion and empathy,” said Fass. “And so having little adorable frogs in a frog pond, I think just wanting to take care of them is sort of a spiritual thing, but it’s also a psychological growth thing.”
Taking care of frogs helps foster empathy and awareness of native life, says Fass, contributing to psychological and social growth. Building a pond helps people become more mindful of water usage, and supports wildlife in the face of wetland drainage and environmental destruction. With 90% of wetlands being drained around the globe, Fass says she thinks if we all created these little water sanctuaries, we could help to slowly restore some of this colossal habitat loss.
5. People love frogs
“People just can’t help but fall in love with frogs,” said Fass.
There is a social component to having a frog habitat. People are interested in seeing them! Which means these little ponds become a social feature, something to talk about, something to collaborate on with friends and neighbors, and something to gather around together.
“Why have a frog pond?” said Fass. “Well, because its easy!”
Catch more news at Great Lakes Now:
Raising monarch butterflies in Interlochen
Depleted wetlands impact freshwater turtles in Toronto
Featured image: Frog pond. (Photo courtesy of Margot Fass)
