EcoQuariums Make Frogs Miserable and People Sick

In “EcoQuariums” sold by Learning Express and other retailers, live African dwarf frogs spend their lives encased in 4-square-inch plastic cubes.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute professor and animal activist John Sanbonmatsu told WCBV-TV last October, "In the wild in equatorial Africa, these animals would enjoy a rich life of sensory experiences and pleasures. But entombing them inside tiny plastic prisons is to condemn them to a lifetime of slow torture.”

In its November 2009 undercover investigation of Wild Creations, the company that manufactures EcoQuariums, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) documented rampant abuse of the frogs. Employees grabbed the amphibians by the handful, picked them up by their fragile legs, tossed live frogs onto piles of dead ones, or dropped them on the floor and left them there to die. Weeks went by between feedings, leading some of the frogs to chew off each other’s legs.

Not only is it a miserable existence for the frogs, but recent reports indicate the EcoQuariums are making people, mostly children, very sick. A strain of Salmonella poisoning has been traced to one of the suppliers of the African dwarf frogs.

In April, the California Department of Public Health issued a warning (pdf) to pet stores and distributors of the aquariums, alerting them that “certain pet aquatic frogs may carry bacteria that cause illness in people and should be withheld from sale to the public."

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  reported that 241 people — 69 percent of them children under 10 — in 42 states have been infected by Salmonella Typhimurium. A third of them became so ill that they had to be hospitalized. “These infections are associated with African dwarf frogs — a type of water frog — and water from their habitats (e.g., tanks or aquariums),” according to the the CDC.

Despite these warnings, Learning Express continues to sell EcoQuariums. In an email sent from company founder and CEO Sharon DiMinico to Change.org members who signed the petition asking the company to stop selling the toys, DiMinico wrote, “Learning Express is committed to ensuring that ethical manufacturing and business practices, as well as rigorous testing and inspection procedures, are in place to ensure that the toys available to children are safe." Apparently Learning Express didn't get the CDC memo.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned the sale of small turtles for 36 years because they pose a severe risk of Salmonella. The FDA said the ban has prevented 100,000 children from becoming infected each year. Now that children are becoming infected from handling African dwarf frogs, the FDA should ban the sale of these animals as well.

Sign the petition asking the FDA to help stop making people sick and the creatures miserable by banning the sale of African dwarf frogs.

Photo credit: Lotzman Katzman