The Cause Of Frog Mutation And Population Decline

It is easy person to point their finger at big industrial and chemical plants and blame them for the cause of so much pollution in our water. When taking a closer look, those same people pointing the finger are equally contributing to the pollution of our water supply and are also to blame. This person could be a friend, family member, classmate, or even you. Even if people do not think that they have a part in this, most do. A variety of data has shown traces of pharmaceuticals used by every day humans in our water. As well as pharmaceuticals there is a presence of chemical contaminants, mainly pesticides that are causing harm to our environment and wildlife. Even humans can be affected by such contamination in the water supply, and it can turn out to be very harmful. Both of these factors are the leading suspected cause of frog mutation and decline in their population. There are many smaller factors that go hand in hand with one another are caused specifically because of our actions, even though they do not directly cause these results they help speed up the process. As a first thought most people, as I did, would point out that the sole cause of this issue was the chemicals. In addition to the direct effects of chemical contaminations on frogs, human activities are to blame for the deformities and decreased population of frogs.

“U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare defines water pollution as вЂ?The adding to water of any substance, or the changing of water’s physical and chemical characteristics in any way which interferes with its use of legitimate purposesвЂ™Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (Rana, 2006, p. 41). Domestic, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters are the three main ways that harmful chemicals end up in our water bodies. Daugton (2007) wrote, “of the major chemical synthesis industries, the pharmaceutical industry produces the most waste…per unit of actual product” (p. 15). Pharmaceuticals such as painkillers, anti depressants, and birth control that pollute our water generally come from the domestic and industrial wastes, and agricultural waste is mostly considered to be from pesticides and fertilizers. The domestic waste problem comes from the disposal of pharmaceuticals into the sewage system by excretions including urine and feces and every so often sweat and rinsing in the shower. The way this works is after ingesting the drug, your body absorbs everything needed from it and what is left are the residues, which “include unmetabolized parent drug, bioactive metabolites, and inactive metabolites” that make their way to the rivers and streams (Daughton, 2007, p. 18). In addition to that, many people just toss out or flush old and unwanted medications. Industrial wastes from factories and manufacturing companies produce even more pollution on top of all the liquid and sludge effluents being let out straight into the surface water. Occasionally liquid effluents will be used for irrigation in agriculture, which when combined with the pesticides in the soil will runoff

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into a nearby body of water producing higher toxic levels than they would individually. Agricultures contribution to pollution is from pesticides and fertilizers that are sprayed on

their crops. Those eventually end up in the aquatic system by means of irrigation and rainfall.

Stream water is not the only place in which our contaminated wastewater ends up. A good portion of the chemicals also ends up in groundwater usually through soil due to rainfall or irrigation. Depending on where you live you may or may not have poor sewage pipes and drainage systems that leak into the ground water. Every so often there will be sewage overflow resulting in leakage into the ground. Even though the majority percentages for pesticides are found in stream water, we still must take precautions in monitoring the groundwater. Table 1 of my graphs illustrates how extreme the percentage of pesticides found in different areas sampling ground and stream water.

These numbers shown must be lowered in order to start protecting our environment and its inhabitants before it spirals out of control.

Present in all bodies of water are self cleaning mechanisms that are suppose to be able to break down the chemicals into simpler compounds that don’t harm the environment such as carbon dioxide (Rana, 2006, p. 42). Since there so many pollutants that the world is putting into our sewage systems on top of the runoffs from crops, and waste from manufacturers, the mechanisms can’t keep up with the toxic build up and eventually the water is concentrated with chemicals. Therefore the amphibian population

starts to become poisoned and deformed. People tend to look past such issues because of the misconception that water treatment plants will just filter all the chemicals out easily. Although the treatment systems for our water are highly advanced, they fail to remove all the chemical agents from harmful pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and hazardous waste. The

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) described the general treatment of wastewater and its two basic stages, primary and secondary. In the primary treatment most solids are caught in a screen, then the sewage goes to a grit chamber to settle small pieces of debris at the bottom, then through the sedimentation tank. Afterwards, secondary treatment removes a majority of the organic matter, eventually being chlorinated before reaching an effluent (EPA, 1998).

Over the last thirty years or so the population of frogs has begun to decline across the world. Not only until recently have we taken notice to this concern. As reported by the Global Amphibian Assessment, “Frogs and toads, with 5,211 species very much drive the average threat level for amphibians as a whole with 32.1% (1,675 species) either threatened or extinct” (Key Findings, para. 7). This wouldn’t be such a big deal if our wastes and run-offs didn’t for the most part flow straight into their habitats. They are especially prone to contamination because their habitats are mainly around surface waters such as streams, lakes, wetlands, ponds, forests, and so on. People compare frogs to the canaries used in the coal mines to detect high levels of poisonous gas before miners went in and forewarn the dangers. This logical comparison is because a frog’s skin is very thin and permeable allowing for substances to be absorbed into its body. Unfortunately the moist skin also lets in the harmful concentrated chemicals present in the water they live in. Often times these chemicals cause a variety