BullfrogControl.com Inc.

The American bullfrog is a warmth loving species that seems to be near the northern limits of its physiological tolerance in southern British Columbia. Consequently, it is the last amphibian species here to emerge from winter torpor and it will not reproduce until water temperatures are well above 20 degrees Celcius in mid-summer.

Adults are carnivorous and cannibalistic, and feed ravenously. Each female produces 20,000 or more eggs in a season that hatch after a very few days. The tadpoles feed on filamentous algae, leafy vegetation, and settled organic material mostly in the warm shallows of lakes and ponds. The tadpole stage varies locally and can take anywhere from two to possibly four years.

Tadpoles transform (metamorphose) into juvenile frogs at summer’s end. Many of these will leave the home lake on warm rainy nights and head off overland to colonize new lakes and ponds. Because the aquatic tadpole stage is long, bullfrog populations can only become established in permanent water bodies - although temporary pools, ditches and ponds can act as way stations for transients.