Colombian Tree Frog (Dendropsophus norandinus) Photo By Grupo Herpetologico de Antioquia, Universidad de Antioquia, Museo de Herpetologia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73774836

Dear Readers, I have been banging on about biosecurity and the importation of ‘pest’ species into the UK, in particular with plants destined for garden centres. Well, a very interesting paper has just been posted which looks at the various diseases and non-native creatures who have turned up, and one that piqued my interest was the discovery of a little Colombian tree frog in some roses at a florist in Sheffield. First up, who even knew that we imported roses from Colombia (via Ecuador as it happens). Presumably these are air-freighted so that they can arrive nice and fresh, and poor froggy survived the whole trip. Nor are they the only vertebrate ‘hitchhikers’ arriving – there are geckos from Greece, wall lizards from Italy, marbled reed frogs from South Africa and another tree frog from the Ivory Coast.

Marbled Reed Frog (Hyperolius marmoratus) Photo by By Ryanvanhuyssteen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37544823

What occurs to me is that if an animal as large as a frog or lizard can turn up alive in imported plants, what chance do we have of stopping invertebrates or fungi or invasive plants from arriving? Dutch Elm disease and Ash Dieback were both originally imported with saplings from overseas. But maybe we should all check a little more carefully into the origin of the plants and flowers we buy, and consider the implications of air-freighting, especially with Valentine’s Day coming up. Sigh. Nothing is straightforward anymore, but maybe it never was, and it’s just that we’re more aware these days.

Onwards!

In central France, a tiny wild boar piglet rescued by farmer Elodie Cappe has had the threat of euthanasia lifted. Rillette (oh dear) grew up with Cappe’s horses and dogs, but when the time came for her to return to the wild, she instead made her way back to the farm repeatedly, and so Cappe decided to keep her. Because the rules around keeping wild animals are so strict (and rightly so), Cappe was threatened with imprisonment, a fine of 150,000 euro and having Rillette put to sleep, even though clearly the boar couldn’t be rehabilitated as a wild animal. Fortunately, the higher court decided that Rillette could stay, and now she has her own basket and hangs out with the other animals.

Over 170,000 people signed a petition to save Rillette, including Brigitte Bardot, a long-term animal activist. It makes me think about how we can rally around an individual animal or person, but the mistreatment of literally billions of pigs, in intensive farming units all over the world, goes largely unnoticed. I suppose it’s easier for us to empathise with the story of one creature than to get our heads around the untold suffering of uncountable numbers. As with so many things, I suspect that the sheer scale of many current problems, from biosecurity to industrialised farming to climate change, are just overwhelming. Still, it’s always good to know that we can be moved to action by a story, and that so many people will try to help if they can.

Boar piglet (known as a ‘squeaker’ ) (Photo By 4028mdk09 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13139423)