The other major problem facing frogs massive deformities observed since 1995 among frog populations in California, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ontario, Quebec, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin1 is now better understood. During the past six months, press interviews with research scientists, and published studies, have shed a bit of light on both problems though true consensus has not yet emerged on either one. No one is even sure whether the two problems are connected, though new evidence indicates they are.
Some scientists still doubt that frogs are actually disappearing worldwide.
They prefer to believe that the simultaneous declines and disappearances of frog populations in North and South America, Europe, and Australia reported since 1980 are nothing more than the normal ups and downs of any wild population. There are roughly 5,000 species of amphibians worldwide. Loss of frog habitat chiefly wetlands is probably the biggest single cause. Global warming and accompanying droughts may contribute because frogs develop from eggs that thrive in water. The artificial stocking of streams with trout and bass plays a role, too.