I have the same experience as well. Never met anyone eating or offering frogs in my life. When I was a kid, in the first half of the 90’s, I would sometimes see frozen frog legs in supermarkets, but I never saw anyone buying them and they have disappeared from french supermarkets for well over 30 years now.
I think it’s only local fairs and festivals and some local restaurants, arguing to keep culinary tradition alive who still serves them, definitely not everyday people. Which is ironic because almost all frogs consumed in France are imported from Indonesia. Poor frogs would be better left alone in their rainforest :(
That’s not what I read. Frog farming is difficult because they must eat live prey. So most of it is imported from places where they don’t bother with farming, or environmental conservation.
From an article in French:
"Problème, pour les scientifiques, ces animaux sont issus “en grande majorité de populations sauvages”, et “en particulier d’Indonésie, de Turquie, d’Albanie et du Vietnam”
"Problematically for scientists, those animals come “in vast majority from wilderness populations” and “particularly from Indonesia, Turkey, Albania and Vietnam”
I don’t think there’d be enough frogs in the wild to fulfil demand.
Yes, there isn’t enough frogs in the wild for it to be sustainable at the scale they’re being hunted. And that’s why scientists raise the alarm about frog populations decline in those places where they are being hunted.
From the same article I linked, still in French, which you can easily machine translate:
“En raison de leur chasse importante, plusieurs espèces et populations connaissent déjà un déclin significatif”, s’inquiètent les experts."
““Due to their heavy hunting, several species and populations are already experiencing a significant decline,” experts worry.”
I have the same experience as well. Never met anyone eating or offering frogs in my life. When I was a kid, in the first half of the 90’s, I would sometimes see frozen frog legs in supermarkets, but I never saw anyone buying them and they have disappeared from french supermarkets for well over 30 years now. I think it’s only local fairs and festivals and some local restaurants, arguing to keep culinary tradition alive who still serves them, definitely not everyday people. Which is ironic because almost all frogs consumed in France are imported from Indonesia. Poor frogs would be better left alone in their rainforest :(
Those frogs are being bred in farms.
That’s not what I read. Frog farming is difficult because they must eat live prey. So most of it is imported from places where they don’t bother with farming, or environmental conservation.
From an article in French:
"Problème, pour les scientifiques, ces animaux sont issus “en grande majorité de populations sauvages”, et “en particulier d’Indonésie, de Turquie, d’Albanie et du Vietnam”
"Problematically for scientists, those animals come “in vast majority from wilderness populations” and “particularly from Indonesia, Turkey, Albania and Vietnam”
Link to the article in French
https://www.bfmtv.com/animaux/une-responsabilite-particuliere-plus-de-500-scientifiques-demandent-a-la-france-de-freiner-les-importations-de-cuisses-de-grenouilles_AN-202403090160.html
I’ve seen frogs being farmed in Thailand, albeit on a small scale. I don’t think there’d be enough frogs in the wild to fulfil demand.
Yes, there isn’t enough frogs in the wild for it to be sustainable at the scale they’re being hunted. And that’s why scientists raise the alarm about frog populations decline in those places where they are being hunted.
From the same article I linked, still in French, which you can easily machine translate:
“En raison de leur chasse importante, plusieurs espèces et populations connaissent déjà un déclin significatif”, s’inquiètent les experts."
““Due to their heavy hunting, several species and populations are already experiencing a significant decline,” experts worry.”