with special thanks to the Haliburton County ECHO, award winning local paper

Country Life
THE ECHO'S SUMMER SUPPLEMENT
August 22- August 29, 2000

ERIK MARTENSON “ON THE WATERFRONT”

  A VERITABLE EXPLOSION of large tadpole s turned the water in Stormy Lake black this past this summer.  Residents of the lake say that they saw thousands of them when they look off their docks.
"We've never had them like this,' says Bonnie Berezowsky, who has been cottaging on the lake for eight years.  "We've never really seen any in the past, never like this."
The large finger-length tadpoles arrived in the early weeks of June and soon covered, the rocks on shore.  "There's an overabundance, We think they are bullfrog tadpoles," says Berezowsky.
Dana Kinsman of the Ministry of Natural Resources office in Minden spoke with the MNR's amphibian expert, Tim Haxton, about the situation.
"Nobody can definitively tell you what's going on.  But what he's guessing is this hasn't been a good spring for tadpoles and frogs.  The last couple of years have been very good and green and bull frogs usually stay in the tadpole stage for about two years, but it can be up to four or five years.  What we're seeing is what we're reaping from those last couple of good warm springs and summers in the water for frogs."
Berezowsky had wondered if, the excess of tadpoles was due to the large rock bass derbies that her husband and others organised for the lake association.  The derbies have been taking place for the past three years and is estimated that they removed 200 pounds of rock bass per year.
 "I seriously doubt it," says Kinsman.  "You have got to remove a significant number of rock bass on an annual basis to really make an impact.  But I don't doubt it may have made some contribution. There'd probably be a number of things that add up cumulatively.  That's our best guess as to what is going on.  It's just pure guesswork."
 

This story used with thanks to the Haliburton County ECHO