Lord of the Frogs

Hutch took Mike and the kids out a couple of weeks ago to catch tadpoles. As the tadpoles changed into frogs we moved them to a new container. It was great for the kids because they got to experience, first hand, most of the stages of a frog's life cycle. Well, the taddies were dirty and I had to change their water often- to many tads in such a small space and they smelled really bad so yesterday we took all the tadpoles and all but four of the frogs and released them into a local park with a huge pond. I immediately saw a problem. The frogs were used to spending their days on rocks we put in their bucket so as soon as we dumped them in the pond they all swam to the water's edge and jumped on the embankment. We had raised them in shallow water with fixed perches. We hung around trying to convince them the water was safer but I know the minute we walked away many of them were most likely scooped up by birds. The guilt I felt was enormous and while Dave and Mike tried to convince me that survival instinct would kick in I still felt like I set them up for a massacre. Last night I dreamed of tadpoles in dark black water all night. In the dream all the frogs were gone.