Orville Taylor | Frogs, plague and Melissa

Ignorance can be fatal. Panicked demagogues drew attention to a pond teeming with tadpoles.

In a viral video, thousands of little black creatures wriggling and darkening the water. They were so plentiful that J$100 for each single animated dot with a tail would perhaps make a nice nest egg for the rest of one’s days.

But it really was hysteria, as the uninformed narrators and sharers of this recording were speaking of pestilence on the land, implying that some kind of environmental disaster was about to take place.

They might have been right. However, the explosion in the hatching of these amphibians is zero cause for alarm.

In fact, the worry should have begun about 150 years ago, when they were introduced. An alien and invasive species not unlike the green iguana recently found, the Jamaican ‘bullfrog’ is not a native creature. Brought in like the mongoose as an ill informed solution to, ironically insect pests, the cane toad, also known as the marine toad is prolific. Breeding without actually having sex, the male simply climbs on to the back of the female, locks onto her and squirts his milt over the eggs that she lays. Unlike reptiles such as lizards, who have a style of coitus dedicated to their methodology; there is no hemi-penis for penetration.

Laying thousands of eggs in one squirt, the aftermath of heavy rains floods and certainly a hurricane is a boon for them. Reaching sexual maturity in just a few months, it takes little for these bumpy-skinned creatures to multiply as they have done and put major pressure on other creatures. True, there was not another native toad of that size that was displaced. Yet there is a very rare Jamaican frog that it has pushed to the brink.

What is funny is that our popular little frog about an inch long, that chirps like a cricket, is called a toad, and some Jamaicans will call you stupid for not knowing that ‘toadie’ is a little guy and the frog is the giant with acne and ‘cocobeh’.

Worry not however, because the toads are well-established in our ecosystem and their numbers are regulated by environmental factors themselves. Not only are they carnivores but they are also cannibals and anything that can fit into their mouths they will eat. In fact, they remind me of a friend who has what he describes a ‘see food’ diet, because he gobbles anything he can get his eyes on.

But then something hit me and a chill slithered down my spine. Rivers overflowed their banks Thoroughfares became flooded. What a bauxite! The waters mostly a deep terracotta red.

Under the light of the afternoon sun, it looks like blood. Melissa came, and somehow, without a plea to release the captives; many rivers turned to blood.

With the obliteration of large numbers of our mangroves as Melissa kicked Black River Morass, there is likely to be a major impact on the fish stock and with other pollutants entering the aquifers, be not surprised if we have fish kills of biblical proportions.

Frogs were the second plague, several thousands years ago.

From frogging to fogging, we have the third plague, gnats. A term that refers to small biting insects, mosquitoes often identified as the culprit brought down by Jah upon Pharaoh. This takes no rocket science, and we should Be thankful for the plethora of frogs, who certainly add mosquito to their diets. Dengue and other diseases caused by them lead to itching and scratching. Skin irritations frequently turn into small sores, pustules, boils and generally ‘fassiness’.

Exodus has a different sequence, but so do the four gospels when narrating the Resurrection, the most important event in the Bible.

For the record, leptospirosis also presents with skin lesions.

Forced to bury their dead to avoid contagion, just imagine the body count some rural folk have with their livestock. Numbers are still not finalised; but we know that animal husbandry has taken a massive beating.

Dead animals and flies go together like Jamaican politicians and disrespect for opponents. John Crows seem to be having a month of Sundays, because there is a major deficit in this labour force.

We have already covered seven.

In Exodus 9:18 God promised “very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded...” Reports of some ice fell, but without question Melissa fit the bill.

In Jamaica we say, ‘frog say what is joke to you, is death to me. We have covered eight.

Up to press time, around 23 per cent of customers had no light. Ask the myriad communities. Moderately affected parishes had the prophesied three days of darkness. Most Jamaicans went past that, and to date a quarter of us have surpassed that tenfold.

Thirty days of darkness and counting; these might not be the last days, but Moses is watching.

Grasshoppers often mutate into locusts in the aftermath of hurricanes and floods. Pray that the extant conditions, already ripe for their swarming only lead to increased fruiting of their namesake, the ‘stinking toe.’

A score of 80 per cent is already an ‘A’. At least 90 cases of leptospirosis have been found, with 14 persons dying. Coincidence? All victims are male. I am scared to ask if there is any evidence of primogeniture.

Gather what you want from these facts, but given that algae bloom could lead to the entire set of events in Exodus, the real lesson must be that we need to be extremely careful with our recovery and avoid pussyfooting and thin skins.

Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com