It’s not easy being green: How sustainable is the frog’s legs trade?
Deep fried, baked with herbs, in a soup, in a stew, served with baguettes or with a side of french fries — frogs legs are eaten in many different forms around the world.
Legend has it that the long tradition of eating frogs in France began in the 12th century when the Catholic Church classified the amphibians as ‘fish’ and monks started to eat them as a way around a no-meat diet during Lent. However, frogs have been consumed around the world for centuries in places including the United States, Vietnam, China, Slovenia, and parts of the Caribbean.
Each year, ensuring the supply meets this demand requires that millions of wild frogs are killed. A study (published February 2023) in Nature Conservation estimated that between 2011 and 2020, the EU alone imported around 90 million pounds of frogs’ legs — equal to anywhere between 814 million and 2 billion frogs.
Legal doesn’t mean sustainable
Despite the frog trade clearly thriving, there is very little transparency or regulation of how it should operate. For example, the European Union reports on the weight of “frogs legs” imported by member states without providing details of the species…
