“Right, I’m going to catch amphibians!” I announced to my parents from the kitchen doorway. My backpack bulged with containers of every size and shape imaginable, and my feet rattled in gum boots two sizes too large. I was seven and would, apparently, grow into them. In my excitement, my announcement was a little louder than necessary given the close proximity of my audience. My mother jumped, spilling a splash of tea onto her lap. My father sagely peered over the top of his newspaper, as if I had just announced my intention to urinate on the kitchen floor. I didn’t have time to explain right now. We had been on vacation for almost a whole hour and I had animals to discover!
Drumbeg is a sleepy village on the west coast of Scotland. It lies hidden among bleak, heather-clad mountains that rise magnificently into the clouds; I felt a surge of excitement at this wild, unexplored world. As far as I was concerned we had traveled to the other ends of the Earth from our home in Edinburgh. Our Datsun Cherry strained under the weight of five bodies and as many bags as could be squeezed into the intervening space. Those bags that didn’t fit inside were strapped precariously to the roof as my mother looked on nervously.
We had left before dawn to avoid traffic and as the sun strained to rise above the ever-more looming mountains I became mesmerized by the increasingly bleak and unforgiving landscape. The single track roads weaved around mountains and hugged the rugged coastline. Low clouds obscured the weak morning sun and wipers swished rhythmically, fighting vainly to clear a fine drizzle from the windscreen. Their repeated rhythm lulled me into a trance until I was jolted awake by my head hitting the window in a jarring thud. At regular intervals were roadside signs that warned of the possibility of falling rocks . . . but thinking about this now, I am not sure what purpose they served. What action should we have taken, precisely, to avoid being hurt in the event of a shower of rocks and large boulders?
Eventually, a rough farm-track led us from the paved road to our small white holiday house which was perched on the side of a hill. This final bone-jarring leg of the journey took us away from the single-track road. Our only neighbors were sheep, too busy gorging themselves on grass to be concerned by our presence, and soaring buzzards keeping a watchful eye.
Our bags barely out of the car, I decided that I had already waited too long to explore. It was my duty to discover and share with my family the creatures with which we were going to share this wild landscape for the next two weeks.
And so, fighting off my mother’s attempts to smother me with insect repellent (how did she move so fast?), I galloped out the front door as fast as my short legs in ill-fitting boots would carry me. Inside my backpack, containers rattled as they jostled for position.. “Do you really need to cart so many empty containers across the country?” my mother had asked as I packed my bags hurriedly the night before; controversially, in my view, she considered clothes to be more important than empty ice cream cartons and jam jars. I explained impatiently that I had no idea what I was going to find in this new world and I needed to be prepared for every eventuality.
The drizzle had obligingly let up and a flash of blue sky made a brief appearance in the patchwork of grey and white clouds hanging low in the sky. The air was thin and heady and a stiff breeze carried the damp, clean fresh smell of bracken. As I careered down the rocky hill towards the peat bogs that carpeted the low ground between the hills, my gum boots flapping against my legs like loose sails on a yacht, I felt my lungs fill with the refreshing cool, damp air. Soon I was running on a blanket of spongy green moss and on this strange bouncy terrain my gum boots took on a life of their own, rarely moving in concert with my legs. Then the mossy ground gave way to a wet, peaty mud. My boots became progressively more uncooperative as my feet squelched in and out of this soggy goo, until my right boot decided not to follow my foot. Balancing on one leg, arms flailing, I navigated the exposed foot back into the uncooperative boot. But the next time I wasn’t so lucky; as my foot left the stubborn boot, it took too long for the message to reach my brain, and my foot landed with a squelch into the brown ooze. I would soon own many pairs of brown socks.
I had no idea what creatures lurked in such an inhospitable environment that sucked boots off your legs and turned your socks brown. I was anxious to find out. And so I stopped in the middle of the bog and stood motionless to survey the scene. As I caught my breath a small creature, barely larger than my thumb, pierced the stillness. It surfaced between my boots and treated itself to a large gulp of air before turning tail and darting back down in a flash of orange and white. I could only imagine that my surprise at seeing this creature was reciprocated.
I froze with excitement; the hairs on my neck standing to attention. I realized what the creature must be: it was a newt! I had read about them and seen pictures, but this was my first one in the flesh. I had to catch it!
My plan was simple: I would crouch down and wait, motionless, until it surfaced again. Upon surfacing, I would lunge forth and catch it in cupped hands. Simple. Focused on this task, I was oblivious that my boots, lodged into the back of my knees, were shutting off the blood supply to my legs.
A minute passed. Five minutes. Surely this creature had to breathe again soon?
Then suddenly, out of the brown depths, it appeared, gracefully undulating upwards. I lunged toward it; but my legs, clearly with a different agenda, folded under me, launching my upper body unwillingly into the brown water.
Lying face down in the bog, my brain slowly catching up with the events that had led to my current predicament, I felt a smooth, delicate creature brush my submerged right hand. Carefully, but quickly, I closed my hand around it, and felt it squirm to escape my firm grasp – I had it!
I brought the newt up for examination. Its bulging curious eyes and smooth, delicate skin bore more than a passing resemblance to a frog; but, unlike a frog, the newt was long and slender and adorned with a graceful tail. I placed it on my hand and watched it amble clumsily in a bid to return to the water. So graceful in the water, yet as ungainly on land as I felt in these cumbersome boots. I turned my hand to make it change direction, but it would do no such thing. This creature had its mind set on walking northwards and would not be convinced to do otherwise. What admirable singleness of purpose!
I named him Norman. I could tell it was a ‘he’ because Norman was decked out in dapper mating regalia. He displayed an impressive crest along his spine and his tail was tapered to flicker provocatively as he danced to attract a mate. How the lady newts would adore him, wafting his irresistible scent in their direction! I had no doubt that Norman was a lady-killer.
I could have examined Norman for hours, but I had no time to waste: I had to introduce him to the rest of the family. I hurriedly fetched a jam jar from my backpack and, with one hand, carefully filled it with water and plopped Norman inside. I watched as he swam effortlessly around the edges, his arms tucked by his side. For a moment he explored this strange new habitat before quickly realizing that the potential for exploration was limited.
I trotted back to the house as fast as I could, clutching the prized jar as if it were the egg of a dodo. Reaching the house, breathless, I burst into the living room to find my grandparents, parents and brothers relaxing over a cup of tea and the weekend papers. I plonked Norman’s jar onto the coffee table in the middle of the room and exclaimed in a voice higher in pitch than I had intended, “Look what I found! Have you ever seen anything like it? Meet Norman!” On cue, Norman darted to the bottom of the jar where he lay motionless, legs splayed, in the hope that he may go unnoticed and be allowed to return to his quiet life in the bog. To say my excitement wasn’t shared by the rest of the room would be an understatement, as all eyes that bothered to look up from their paper fixed me with looks that ranged from sheer horror to utter bewilderment. Nobody paid the slightest attention to our new house guest. “So I fell in the peat bog” I offered as explanation for my disheveled appearance, “but look! It’s a newt!” I exclaimed once more, this time in a pitch within audible range.
Eventually my mother broke the silence. “Can we move it from the table where we eat our food?” I decided that engaging the interest of my family was going to take time. I didn’t have time. I swiped Norman’s jar off the table and scampered up to my bedroom where I transferred him to a larger tank; here he would spend the next two weeks under observation.
My family grew accustomed to what became daily excursions into the peat bogs and even tolerated a growing collection of amphibians in my room; perhaps because it kept me out of trouble for most of my waking hours. However, they never really developed more than a passing interest in the multitude of creatures that passed through their house.
Over the next ten years or so we visited Drumbeg every summer. My appetite for discovery never waned and I continued to spend my waking hours delving into the peat bogs to catch frogs and newts and roaming the hillsides in search of the more elusive lizards and snakes. I cannot recall the precise moment that I first realized my fascination with amphibians: probably because there never was such a moment. Rather, what dawned on me was a growing awareness that my fascination wasn’t shared by the rest of the world. So, naturally, this only made my devotion more fervent.
Now, twenty five years and many newts later, I remain utterly fascinated by amphibians – living relics of a time before we graced the planet with our presence. Only now it has gone beyond a mere passion; trying to save amphibians from the clutches of extinction is my career. As if instilling enthusiasm in my family for amphibians wasn’t challenging enough, I have taken on the daunting task of serving as a voice for a group of animals that are defenseless against our bid to destroy their, and our, life support system. I have now traveled beyond the west coast of Scotland and developed an appreciation of how deeply engrained amphibians are in the fabric of global cultures. They serve repeatedly as auspicious totems of transformation, abundance and good luck. It shouldn’t be hard, therefore, to convince people that the world would be a darker, less colorful place without them. Sadly, however, many of us have become so disconnected with the natural world that we are too concerned with remembering to text our vote for the next American Idol to care about the frogs that are slowly blinking out of existence from our own back yards.
And while we are morbidly drawn to tales of catastrophe and read with interest that frogs are succumbing to a killer disease, the minute we put down the newspaper we continue with our blissfully disconnected life. “What can I do to help?” we ask as we climb into our SUVs and drive two blocks to buy People magazine so that we can catch up on the lives of people we don’t know. And we rarely stop to question, let alone address, these priorities.
The connection between mass amphibian extinctions and our everyday lives is simple: these sensitive animals are providing a signal that the ecosystems we depend upon for our fresh water, for clean air and food, are sick. Through their moist, delicate skin amphibians absorb everything we pump into their environment and they are simply the first to go. What will be next: Birds? Mammals? Us? The frogs are obliging us with an early warning, allowing us a chance to change our behavior before it is too late. The question is, are we going to stop and do something a, or are we going to carry on as normal and let our children pick up the pieces?
This story is published in “Courting the Wild: A Love Affair with Reptiles and Amphibians”
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