Customer Reviews

A Plague of Frogs : The Horrifying True Story

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mr. Souder has the rare ability to bring abstruse science to life without bias or over-simplification. He is also a keen observer of the human species and its political interactions.

This is indeed "the horrifying true story," one I wish would go away; yet the author's presentation is dispassionate, thorough, and as non-alarmist as possible for a subject this spooky.

The book offers a good overview of current environmental science research in addition to its difficult detective story: what's responsible for these massive levels of gross deformities in frogs?

I must disagree with the reviewer who referred to William Souder's "A Plague of Frogs: The Horrifying True Story" as a `silly' book. This book was at once horrifying, fascinating, spellbinding, and thought-provoking. It also appears to be well-researched: Souder followed the story for more than three years and he references more than one hundred texts and technical papers at the end of the book. This is no 'silly' book. I cannot agree with the same reviewer who described the book as `biased journalism.' In my opinion, Souder presents an intriguing but balanced look at the problem and the efforts of scientists to understand it. Anyone with even a slight interest in our environment should read this book. You won't be able to put it down!

When I saw the cover of the book, with its photograph of a deformed frog, I remembered seeing newscasts in the mid-90s about the discovery of large numbers of frogs with deformed legs. Missing legs, missing toes, extra legs, extra feet, underdeveloped legs and other anomalies were being discovered in frightening quantities. There were frogs with as many as nine legs. There were frogs whose feet were webbed to their torsos such that they could not extend their back legs and jump normally. I was at once intrigued and repulsed by the descriptions and photographs of some of these specimens. What DID cause these deformed frogs? I could not remember seeing a follow-up newscast with the resolution of the mystery of this outbreak or `plague.' I was hooked.

After buying the book, I raced through it. Souder's style was similar to that of any good mystery writer - gradually relaying the story as it unfolded during the months and years that he followed it. But here, the story is true and the detectives are scientists. What I found most horrifying is that despite all of our knowledge and technology, this mystery defied solution. Surely with all of our advances in science we could solve this problem. Right?

But the mystery persisted for months and YEARS. Souder teases the reader as the story unfolds. I kept waiting for the `answer' to be found. In the process, Souder revealed the debate and conflict among the various scientists - each of whom had areas of specialty and expertise that were possible `suspects' in the mystery. Were the deformities caused by parasites? How about man-made chemicals? Was this part of a naturally occurring cycle of occasional genetic bloopers? Or was something very amiss in the frog's environment?

Souder's book reveals the sometimes petty squabbles between scientists and researchers, who, despite their intelligence, are just as human as you or I. He also shows us the lack of organization, overabundance of red tape and bureaucracy, and the lack of funding for solving this mystery. I don't want to give away the `answer,' so I'll just say that the ending was not what I expected. I'd still read the book again ... and probably will.

This book is another in a series of books written about the subject of frog deformities. This book sheds an urgency on the problem in a dramatically written narrative, that hopefully will inform and concern most readers. While many people make light of the fact that the world has a frog problem, no one can dispute that global changes are affecting these animals at an increasing rate. Even if the problem is a "natural" one as some reviewers suggest, people should still be concerned that the world is rapidly loosing animals that have managed to survive for millions of years- certainly we should be doing something to change this; whatever the cause. I applaud the author for trying to get readers to see the problem as a global one, and a serious one. I would urge people to read this book, and come away from it prepared to do battle with the naysayers that have little concern for the future of frogs, the planet, and human life.

Contrary to the claims of Dennis Avery in his posted review, even the scientists who discovered that parasite infestations do cause some frog deformities do not claim that parasites cause all the deformities or that they cause all types of observed deformities. This book is well written and absolutely terrifying; its only real fault is lack of an index. Souder is familiar with his topic and the people involved and has written a clear, compelling account of this scientific mystery. Unfortunately, people with well-established biases will continue to ignore the message nature is sending us; that humanity has become an absolute plague on the face of the earth. We can no longer continue to breed like a virus and expect earth to recover from our insults. Frog deformities and massive drops in amphibian species worldwide are just the tip of the coming iceberg that will sink our civilization like the Titanic unless we sit up and take notice. Read this book, think about it, and for your children and grandchildren's sake, do something about it.

After being urged by my wife to read this book, I picked it up and found that I couldn't put it down. I hadn't anticipated a reaction of this sort to a book about frogs. Mr. Souder's writing style is conversational, and is easy to grasp for the non-scientist. Regardless of causality, Mr. Souder makes a good case that environmental difficulties for lower forms of life should be of a concern to all of us.

I did not observe the type of overt bias suggested by some of the other reviewers. Certainly, the author believes that the issue of frog deformities is worthy of our attention, and makes every effort to draw us into the story as he sees it. Is there bias? Probably. Fact is, its been a long time since I've picked up an unbiased non-fiction read. I've come to believe they don't exist! Go in with your eyes open, and enjoy this read. It will make you think, and that's what it's all about.

But my curiosity was peaked after reading Mr. Avery's review of this book. Mr. Avery clearly sees something in it that I did not, or did not fully appreciate. With a couple of key strokes, I came to learn that Mr. Avery is the author of "Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastics: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming." That explains alot. I'm sure in reading Mr. Avery's book, I'll find the sort of unbiased scientific analysis that I have been yearning for!

I thought this book was an extremely vivid and detailed account of an ecological disaster that is becoming all too common. Mr. Souder came and talked to a biology class of mine not too long ago and seemed to really know what he was talking about. This book reflects his exceptional journalism skills, which helps the reader understand things that scientists have done to try and solve this enigma.

There are some excellent reviews already written on this book;but since none have been written for quite a while;let me do the honor of keeping the flame alive.I, also, found it an excellent read.I read a lot of books in the broad field of Natural History ;but many are written by naturalists and their strongest abilities are often not in writing skills.This book written by someone, more of a journalist, and hence is a much better read.
While centered on the subject of frogs ,it does an excellent job of covering the whole subject of enviromental impact on life on the planet.He gives a detailed look at people involved and how their personalities have so much to do with identifying problems and finding solutions.He does not condem these people for the way they behave but tries to show why and in the end what, we have to expect.I think he has done a better job,being an 'outsider' than any of the scientists involved,could have done.Let the scientists do the reasearch and the writers tell the story!This is not said to criticize the scientists but to praise the writer.
He points out that there are two types of errors that can occur when a problem surfaces:

TYPE I Assume the situation is bad,if it turns out OK,nobody
gets hurt,maybe some just embarrassment or credibility
problems.

TYPE II Assume not dangerous,turns out to be dangerous.This is a tragedy.No one wants to make a TYPE II error.

As in many other books coming out today we are again being warned of the the problems man is creating with the enviroment.
While most thinking people would agree that we are heading towards disaster,they think it is a long way off,the men in the white coats will come up with a solution (don't they always?);
besides I,m not the problem.I still want that SUV;somebody else
can solve the enviroment problem!
Bill McKibben in "The End Of Nature" (1989) gives us lots of evidence that man has now the power to harm the enviroment beyond its ability to recover.It seems the warnings are not being heeded."In our lifetime there is no topic that will matter as much as our planet's survival and every discussion will begin with the premise of The End Of Nature".
Just a couple of thoughts from Sowder's book:

"This world is all we have.We've got no place to go."

"The earth is changing,and the frogs are responding."

"I think there's a lot we can't do anything about.The
earth will take care of itself.Time is on its side.We
don't have to save the world.We have to save ourselves."

Just think about this. Who would have paid $1 for a bottle of water 25 yars ago ? Where will we be in the next 25;or is it 15,or maybe 10?
To quote a line from Laurel and Hardy;

"Now look at the mess you've got us in."

Give this book a read,it's a warning for us all!

'

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When a Minnesota school field trip in 1995 stumbled across frogs with gross deformities, no one could have predicted the scientific juggernaut that would be unleashed as a result-or the conclusions one could interpret from the data. Through years of research, biologists found essentially four effects in play: some of the frog deformities were natural, some were due to the exposure to pesticides, some to increased UV radiation because of our weakening ozone layer, and some were due to parasitic infection possibly exacerbated by environmental stress brought about by human activity. Curiously, these maladaptive deformities (which have led to population crashes among some species of frogs and other amphibians) occur mostly in geographic zones in which the climate tightly controls the reproductive processes of amphibians: in the short breeding season between winter and fall in the north, or at high elevations where temperature gradients butt ecological niches right up against the edge of survivability. In other words, amphibian populations are crashing in the boundary zones, at the edges of chaos, where one would expect to find the first victims in a cascade of biotic collapse. The lesson to be learned from this interpretation of the data is that each collapse of a boundary zone moves that zone's boundary a little closer to the temperate zone in which we and other organisms thrive, involving more and more species (including us) in a complex, unpredictable cascade of cause and effect.

The frogs are showing us another good reason to take global warming seriously.

William Souder takes what could have been a dry, esoteric topic and turns it into a fascinating exploration of the way science works. Though the data is laced with many environmental conclusions, Souder avoids turning "A Plague of Frogs" into an environmental call-to-arms. Instead, he focuses upon the scientists and the process of science. He follows the deformed-frog investigation from its inception; he observes as rival camps accrete like planets from the swirling mass of data to compete for limited resources and limited funding; as frustrated researchers drop out while others join the cause; as mistakes are made and as moral quandaries are debated. He profiles the scientists one by one, removing their stereotypical white lab coats, handing them beers and dressing them in hip waders and flannel shirts instead.

Though "A Plague of Frogs" becomes a little long-winded in its second half, it remains an excellent documentary about the method of science and is worth reading for this reason alone.

I think this is Truly a WONDERFUL Book..... The price is wonderful and it just tells you alot about frogs.... Any type of teacher would love this...especially science teachers! Marvelous!

As a student currently doing research on this topic, this book was a good reference to the issue to frog deformites, expecially in the midwest where this book revolves around (the N. Leopard Frog).