Tuesday 3 August 2010

Hop To It, Officers! But Remember, They're Slippery Customers...

Mile End Road resident Dominic Payne got a visit from an environmental health officer from Colchester Council recently.

The problem ? Noisy frogs mating in her pond. Apparently, this had been reported to the council's noise abatement people and...

Hey, stop laughing at the back! This is serious:
She told him officers had spent the previous evening listening to the frogs, measuring their noise decibel levels. He said: “I thought that was the end of it, but a week later two police officers turned up and said ‘we’ve come to investigate the frogs’.
Say what?
“They went all round my garden trying to photograph the frogs. They were here for about an hour and a half.
I...

I just...
Then, last week, next-door neighbour James Kent returned from holiday to find a letter from the police’s Wildlife Crime Unit saying the marsh frogs were a “non-native” species and needed to be removed.
FFS..!' We're the Pond Police, love, and we 'aven't 'ad our dinner!'
However, Mr Kent insisted they had been using his back garden pond for 25 years and had been introduced to the UK in 1935 – 75 years ago.

He said: “I spoke to the police and they said they need to come and capture them all and take them away because they’re a non-native species and they shouldn’t be here.

“She said they will either get destroyed or they can be put somewhere where they can’t escape. To destroy them is just not right.”
More than that, this cannot possibly be what was intended when these specialised Wildlife Crime Units were set up. Was it?
Mr Payne said he believed there were plenty of better ways for public officials to spend their time and taxpayers’ money.
You're not kidding...
He said: “I’ve told people this story and they said, ‘you’re making it up’. I reckon the police and the council must have wasted at least a week of their time each investigating this.
If they've nothing better to do than this, why not just dispense with them?

20 comments:

Mr Toad said...

Come on then! What kind of frogs?

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

WTF? I mean, WTFF?

dickiebo said...

So......er.....if we get more cops on the streets..er...what will they be doing? The mind boggles.

Mick Turatian said...

...they’re a non-native species and they shouldn’t be here...

Crikey - I've just hidden my labrador in a cupboard!

Jiks said...

It's getting increasingly difficult to tell the real events from the Dail Mash parody.

So, whats next I wonder, issuing each frog with an ASBO? Locking them up in a maximum security stockade for a crime they did not commit? The mind boggles ...

Tadpole said...

Dad croaked last night.

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

No, Jiks. If there is 'no reasonable prospect' of them being deported, they can't be imprisoned.

Strictly that applies only to humans, but sick the RSPCA on the Old Bill and we'll soon have that sorted out.

nbc said...

Next up, a visit from the Borders Agency as they're obviously illegal aliens...

IanF4 said...

Wait till they find out the council has been using RIPA legislation to monitor the suspected frog traffickers.

Dabble said...

so if the toads are non native and need to be removed - why was this chap fined £1500 for providing an oustanding removal service for a non native species?

http://tinyurl.com/39gztsr

Indyanhat said...

If theyre originally from france they cannot be sent back to be horribly tortured and mutilated ,poor wee things!!!

Jiks said...

I think the law on Toads and Frogs works a bit like this:

If you a find a frog, or more seriously a toad, abandoned in your garden you could be in possession of an illegal amphibian, which can lead to a £1500 fine and 5 years in jail.

Obviously handing said creatures in to the RSPCA would be crazy as that's just handing the proof they need to them a plate, so again, your nicked for possession of an illegal amphibian. I expect you would also be charged with transporting a dangerous animal without a licence.

Killing the frog, or toad, would be breaching it's human rights so that's out too. That said you could eat them all and claim it was a required part of your religious practices ^^

PT Barnum said...

As with grey squirrels you are supposed to kill the marsh frog if you find one, brain pithing being the method of choice, apparently. That's assuming you can distinguish it from the common frog. Give it a try but the frog isn't telling.

Kill a common frog and you'll be done for cruelty.
Let a marsh frog live and you can be prosecuted.

It's a European frog, not a poisonous Amazonian amphibian, so doesn't that violate the Lisbon treaty?

Humans can be so vile and stupid.

Leg-iron said...

I'm really glad I filled in my pond this year.

That makes me immune to the Frog Squad.

Dredd, Judge Joseph said...

Surely the halfwit who deployed these officers to this job MUST have had a moment's thought as to how the antics of the officers would play with the public at large? Or were they operating on their own initiative? Either way they look like a right pair of berks and have opened the force to ridicule! Pope was right: 'A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring...' Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744) in An Essay on Criticism, 1709.

JuliaM said...

"Crikey - I've just hidden my labrador in a cupboard!"

Given the number of invasive species in the UK, the WU are all going to be too busy to do anything else for the next 100 years!

"It's getting increasingly difficult to tell the real events from the Dail Mash parody."

The one that isn't actually funny is the real one. That's how I tell them apart now.

"Wait till they find out the council has been using RIPA legislation to monitor the suspected frog traffickers."

Heh!

"...why was this chap fined £1500 for providing an oustanding removal service for a non native species?"

Good point!

"That said you could eat them all and claim it was a required part of your religious practices..."

Actually, frog's legs are quite nice.. ;)

"As with grey squirrels you are supposed to kill the marsh frog if you find one, brain pithing being the method of choice, apparently. That's assuming you can distinguish it from the common frog. Give it a try but the frog isn't telling."

Have Googled for images, and they are virtually ideantical!

"Surely the halfwit who deployed these officers to this job MUST have had a moment's thought as to how the antics of the officers would play with the public at large?"

No, I doubt it. Why should they? It's not as if there are any real consequences - for them...

Edwin Greenwood said...

On behalf of my client, Rana temporaria, I am writing to complain about the elitist, classist and deeply hurtful use of the expression, "common frog". My client should properly be referred to as a "vernacular frog".

Miss Frog wishes to make the following statement,

"Reedeep!"

selsey.steve said...

...they’re a non-native species and they shouldn’t be here...

Could be said about a lot of folk hereabouts.

Angry Exile said...

Tonight on "Police, Camera, Ambhibian": lilypads out of control - get yours checked; part 5 of our guide to toad safety; pissed as a newt; this tadpole's miraculous escape; and Essex police tackle antisocial croaking.

/facepalm

JuliaM said...

Hey, I'd watch that! It'd be nice not to see parts of my neighbourhood, as I often do when watching 'Police Interceptors'... ;)