They are known to eat mice, small turtles, fish, snakes, birds and other frogs. However, the bulk of their diet is insects, spiders, crayfish and other invertebrates. Reduction in frog population can cause an increase in the spread of malaria, encephalitis and other diseases which are carried by insects. Taking frogs from the wild could have devastating consequences. These pests destroy crops and carry diseases.
Insect pests increase precipitously where frogs are vanishing.
Frog waste is also a good organic fertilizer and serves as food for snakes. These snakes in turn eat rats which live in the rice paddies. Frogs used for trade are captured by the bucket and slaughtered in the most insanitary and inhumane manner. Usually they have their legs cut off with a blade while still alive. The rest is tossed aside on a bloody twitching pile of limbless torsos to die slowly.