# General Topics > Fieldwork >  Do you think pickerel frog toxins could effect other frogs?

## Eli

Hi guys! Today i visited the two lakes by my house. I was expecting to see green frogs, and froglets of all kinds. I get there and there are just pickerel frogs. The babies that don't have tails but still have stayed close to the water. This year i haven't seen or heard green frogs besides one i caught earlier in April. Grays, spring peepers, and toads are still common but they breed in vernal pools. Do you think the pickerel frog toxins may have killed the other frogs. They are the most common frogs around here. The others may not have been affected because they don't breed near the lakes.

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## Brian

I wouldn't think so. Even in fairly small natural ponds I've seen them happily coexisting side by side with other species. Putting them together in a bucket or other small enclosure that doesn't have the natural water circulation is another story.

The winter was very harsh on some of the larger frogs around here and it could be that many of the adult green frogs near you took the cold badly. Did you look around in the water for last years green frog tadpoles? They have an easier time wintering than adults but have taken their time getting to land with the coldish summer we've been having.

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Frogman1031

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## Eli

I pretty much went around every where of both lakes. No tads or froglets. There was one prolific breeding ground that i didnt get to check. There was a rattlesnake so i left. I'll go back today and check there. There are almost always greens there

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## Eli

I went back today. I DID hear green frogs calling. Not a lot but thats expected as the breeding season has pretty much ended.

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## Amy

At the pond behind our house, I would say the green frog population is less than half of what it was last summer.  I think this past winter was very hard on them  :Frown:   Let's hope for a milder one this year.

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## Brian

On the plus side, an adult female can drop some 3-4,000 eggs in one go so they can bounce back from a bad year relatively quickly.

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## DEW

I was looking up Pickerel frogs this summer because I had never seen one before. What I read is that they are most toxic to other frogs when stressed for whatever reason, over crowding, lack of resources,  predation.

I had a ton of tadpoles in my swimming pool this year and although I did heard a pickerel frog calling ( faintly) I don't see how he could have been heard over the vociferous Grays and at any rate there were no pickerel tadpoles, just thousands of grays.

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