07/24/09

Toad Abodes

This summer, you may want to encourage a toad or two to take up residence in your backyard or garden. One toad can eat up to 10,000 insect pests over the course of the summer. Toads like damp, shady areas and need shelter. If you want to attract a toad, you should provide a good home, or “toad abode” for it. Garden stores or online stores sell plain terracotta or even fancy toad abodes like the one below from Lucinda & Co.:

Toad Abode from Lucinda & Co.

Toads need water, too, so you should leave tray of water near their abode. Line the toad’s home with leaf mold or leaf litter. Don’t bring toads from elsewhere and put them in your yard (or let loose pet toads). As with your frog pond, build it and (hopefully) the toad will come.

Here’s a solar-powered one with lights.

Solar Powered Toad Abode

I’m almost tempted to buy this, but unfortunately I have no toads in my city backyard. Maybe I could use it as a Slug Abode (I’ve got a lot of them!).

Here some more suggestions from the National Wildlife Federation for making your own toad abode:

If you’re on a budget, you can improvise. For instance, half-bury a large flowerpot on its side in a shady spot. Or take the same pot, drill holes at the rim in the shape of a door, tap gently with a hammer to remove the chip, invert and decorate to your heart’s content (nontoxic paints, please). Another option: Arrange flat rocks with a toad-sized space underneath. Situate your toad abode in the shade—say, under a bush—and in the dampest spot in your yard, near a gutter downspout, air-conditioner drip or in a low spot that collects rainwater.

Toads are sensitive to toxins, so don’t use lawn and garden chemicals in your garden or backyard!

Speaking of toads, I’m working on post about Toad Lit, so please send along your suggestions for your favorite children’s books with toad characters.

07/22/09

Frog Lover: Wangari Maathai

Last week, I wrote a post about Prince Charles’ Rainforest Project, which included a video featuring celebrities with a green frog. Today I came across another Rainforest Project video, this one featuring African environmental activist Wangari Maathai with a frog. I’ve alway admired Maathai and even quoted her in our Mission statement for this blog.

Wangari Maatha, born in Kenya, was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize (in 2004). She started The Green Belt Movement in Kenya in 1977, with the idea that communities across Kenya would plant trees to help with the problem of deforestation. To date, over 40 million trees have been planted, mainly by women.

I few years ago, I wrote a children’s book manuscript about Maathai called “The Tree Lady” (unpublished). To write the story, I did a lot of research about her. I learned that she called herself “Mary Jo” when she studied in the United States. I am a fairly reluctant Mary Jo, so I’m glad she switched back to her African name when she returned home!

Professor Maathai often talks about how watching frogs and tadpoles as a child spurred her interest in nature and biology. When she returned home to Africa from the United States, she was saddened to find that the frogs were gone: the stream by her home had dried up due to deforestation.

In an interview with Marianne Schnall, appearing today in The Huffington Post, Maathai touches on many issues, but, as always, she mentions frogs:

Sometimes when I talk to little children I remind them of the fact that when I was growing up myself, I used to play with frog eggs and tadpoles and I used to walk in the field, I used to literally copy whatever my mother was doing on the land. And that may be the reason why I eventually developed the passion for green and for the Earth. So it is extremely important for adults and especially those who are in charge of cities to make sure that we do not lose touch with the land and with the environment. And especially our children.

So in honor of Wangari Maathai, spend some time this summer enjoying nature with your kids—and try and see some frogs, too!

07/20/09

There's a frog disruptor in your shampoo!*

Last week I wrote about Atrazine, an endocrine disruptor used widely in pesticides. These chemicals, which mimic human hormones, have been connected with genital deformities in fish, frogs, and possibly newborn baby boys.

This week I’m writing about endocrine disruptors in products a bit closer to home: skin creams, shampoos, deodorants, sunscreens, and other cosmetics and personal-care products. According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics site, endocrine disruptors such as phthalates that are used in cosmetics, “interfere with reproductive functioning by reducing the levels of sex hormones, which are critical for development and functioning of the sex organs. Additional research suggests that these same mechanisms may link phthalates to breast cancer.”

In his book Safe Trip to Eden, David Steinman writes about phthalates:

Because phthalates aren’t always strongly bonded to the materials to which they’ve been added, they can be absorbed through the human body through inhalation or the skin. The body’s largest organ, the skin is an exceptional vehicle for absorption of phthalates via cosmetics and personal care products, enabling their passage into the body without passing through the harsh environment of the gastrointestinal tract or without first passing through the liver, the body’s main detoxifying organ.

I decided to take a trip to CVS to see if I could find products without these chemicals. But virtually every cosmetic and personal-care product I found from shampoo to skin moisturizers, nail polish to sunscreen contains these or other similar chemicals.

I use a shampoo called Aveeno, Active Naturals with Nourishing Wheat Complex and Blue Lotus Flower. It’s in an earthy brownish bottle with images of wheat stalks on it. So it’s natural, right? No. It’s full of chemicals—a real chemical soup actually.

I also use a skin cream called Origins: A Perfect World, Intensely Hydrating Body Cream with Green Tea. The cream came in a very upscale-looking box wrapped with twine and recyclable green packaging. This cream isn’t as natural as it claims either. It’s manufactured by Estee Lauder and gets a so-so rating on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. (You can search almost any product here.) In fact, I found that some of the budget generic CVS skin creams get a better rating on the database than the pricey Origins.

I finally found some products at CVS that didn’t have chemicals—the Burt’s Bees products—but they weren’t in the cosmetics aisle. Feeling virtuous and frog-friendly, I plopped down $17.99 for Burt’s Bees Radiance SP 15, Day Lotion with Royal Jelly. On the container it says, “Never any Sulfates, Parabens, Phthalates, or Petrochemicals.” Great, right? Well, I used it and, unfortunately it contains a chemical-smelling fragrance, which to my sensitive nose, was so strong I couldn’t use the cream. Evidently cosmetic companies aren’t required to list ingredients in fragrances. So beware when it says “fragrance” as one of the ingredients.

I finally gave up and went to the local health food store. I found lots of chemical-free cosmetics and personal care products there. I ended up with Aubrey Organics, Rosa Mosqueta, Rose Hip, Moisturizing Cream. It has a nice almondy smell that reminds me of Jergens. Ingredients include aloe vera, sweet almond oil, and rose hip oil—and not one chemical!

I’m not saying you have to throw out all your cosmetics, but I would at least be aware of how products are marketed to seem natural or organic when they aren’t at all. Read the labels. Check your cosmetics in the Skin Deep database to see how they rate (note: they also have user reviews of cosmetics). And consider switching to chemical-free organic products. I welcome any feedback about natural cosmetics you’ve used and can recommend to others.

For more information: from Scientific American magazine, “Saving Face: How Safe Are Cosmetics and Body Care Products” and from The Daily Green, “How to Go Green: Nature Skin Care.”

*I got the title of this post from a post by John Laumer on Tree Hugger,”There’s a Frog Disruptor in your Soap,” which discusses the possible dangers of the chemical triclosan in soaps and other products.

07/17/09

Frogs of Summer: Wood Frog

Sometimes it seems that the charismatic frogs get all the attention (like our mascot, the red-eyed tree frog). But the more ordinary frogs with muted colors have a beauty all their own.

Recently, my husband John and younger son Tim took a trip to New Hampshire where it rained every day. But all this rain brought out—you guessed it—lots of frogs and toads. My husband took this picture of a Wood Frog near Lookout Ledge in Randolph, New Hampshire (in the White Mountains). Unfortunately because he’s my husband, he’s disqualified from entering the Frogs Are Green photo contest!

Wood Frog, photo copyright John Rounds

Despite the rainy vacation, I’m glad my husband was able to get this beautiful photo. He took the picture on a hike on the one slightly sunny afternoon they had, using an ordinary point-and-shoot digital camera and a flash.

Here’s information about Wood Frogs:

Wood Frogs live in Northeastern US and most of Canada. In the winter they hibernate in places where it goes well below freezing—the water in their bodies freezes solid. This ability allows the Wood Frog to live further north than any other reptile or amphibian in North America. It is easily recognized by the dark mask around its eyes and the prominent ridges along its back.

07/16/09

Frog Scientist: Dr. Tyrone Hayes and Atrazine

In my post Rachel Carson’s Legacy, I wrote about widely-used chemicals called endocrine disruptors that are causing deformities in fish and frogs, and are linked to an increase in genital deformities in newborn baby boys.

When reading about endocrine disruptors, I keep coming across the work of Dr. Tyrone Hayes, a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, at the University of California–Berkeley. He has studied the effects on frogs of an agricultural pesticide called Atrazine. Hayes found that these chemicals, even at very low levels, were causing male frogs in the wild to develop eggs in their testes (!).

I came across a lecture Dr. Hayes gave called “From ‘Silent Spring’ to Silent Night.” The lecture is about an hour long, but it’s worth watching (see below). Hayes is a funny and engaging speaker and he uses easily understood charts/graphs/pictures to explain how these chemicals effect the frogs—and how they might also effect you.

One Dr. Hayes’s experiments with frogs really hit home with me. He studied two groups of frogs that live along the same river in California. For the experiment he placed the frogs, same species, in cages in the water. One group was placed upstream of the Salinas valley, one of the largest agricultural areas of the country, which is farmed intensely all year round. Runoff containing Atrazine and other chemicals from the farms flows into the river.

The other group of frogs was placed about 50 miles downstream in a clean area. He found that the tadpoles in the area near the farms had retarded growth. They were tiny compared to the frogs in the healthier area. Hayes then injected both groups of frogs with bread yeast. The group of frogs near the farms died within a day or two after being injected with the yeast. The other frogs, from the cleaner area upstream of the agricultural area, survived. They were larger and had stronger immune systems and so were able to fight off the effects of the yeast.

I am not a scientist, but it does make me wonder about claims that some scientists make that the various viruses, parasites, and even the recent claim that frog deformities are caused by dragonfly larvae, are “part of nature.” The frogs living in the “chemical soup” obviously were smaller, weaker, and more susceptible to parasites and diseases.

As Hayes says, we can’t just pass this off as a frog problem that isn’t relevant to humans. Our hormones are chemically identical to frog hormones. Hayes discusses studies indicating higher breast cancer rates in areas where Atrazine is in the well water. He points out that the effects of the chemical may not be obvious now, but may be carried to our children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren.

How can you reduce your own exposure to Atrazine? If you live in the Midwest or other agricultural areas, you might consider drinking bottled water or use a Brita filter on tap water, particularly if you are pregnant. The runoff from farms is at its worst from May to August (in the Midwest). As Elizabeth Royte writes in her book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and How We Buy It:

Human kidneys filter Atrazine, and most people don’t spend a lot of time swimming in herbicide-laced water as frogs do. But human fetuses do.

I was surprised to learn that Atrazine is sprayed on Christmas trees as well.

Below are two videos. The first is Hayes’s hour-long lecture “From ‘Silent Spring’ to Silent Night.” Under this video is his “Atrazine Rap,” a 2-minute summary of the lecture in case you don’t have time to watch the longer video.

07/15/09

Make Way for Toadlets

Citizens of Chilliwack, BC, Canada, have closed off roads to protect Western toadlets on their annual migration. The toads breed in wetlands, but must migrate across a busy road to reach the forested areas where they spend the rest of the summer and winter. Over a 3-day period, volunteers saved over 38,000 toads.

Here is a cute slide show of the event and a YouTube video of one tiny straggler’s epic journey across the road.