"Over half of 2 million frogs imported to Bay Area annually carry disease that endangers local amphibians."

"A clerk serving Cantonese-speaking customers at a cluttered market in San Francisco’s Chinatown reached into a tub of American bullfrogs. She drew a one-pound frog from the top of the pile. She whacked its head, sliced its neck and placed its body in a plastic grocery bag.

The frog cost about $4. If it was sautéed, stir-fried or cooked in a clay pot and served with rice and vegetables, it could provide enough poultry-flavored white meat for a meal for at least two people.

About 5 million live American bullfrogs are imported every year into the U.S., nearly two-thirds of which carry the chytrid fungus disease B.d., according to a 2009 paper in Biological Conservation. The frogs, pictured for sale in a tub in a San Francisco Chinatown market, carry but survive the pathogen, which they can spread to more susceptible species.
Credit: Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen"

John Upton reports for the Bay Citizen April 8, 2012.
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