Noisy frogs - What can I do?

"I have Bleating Tree Frogs in my garden that are noisy and my neighbours have complained about the noise. What can I do?"

Bleating Tree Frog, Litoria dentata, has a fairly short breeding season. Here are a few options to alleviate the situation:

• Plant bushes to form a screen around the pond and along the boundary fence
• Create another pond further from the neighbours and move all the water plants etc to that pond and drain the first pond; frogs should move to the second pond of their own volition.
• Introduce an eel or turtle to the pond - it will soon eat any frogs which venture into the pond and hence reduce the population in the vicinity - but rather a drastic solution!
• Make the pond less attractive to certain species (eg Bleating Tree Frog) which like to spawn in open expanses of water, by turning the pond into more of a bog. You could do this by reducing the depth and planting sphagnum moss etc. Smaller, quieter frogs like the Common Eastern Froglet, Crinia signifera, would probably still breed in these conditions.

In the meantime you should inform your neighbours that the wildlife that lives on your property is exactly that; ‘wild’ and is not under the control of an individual. All frogs in NSW are protected and cannot be intentionally harmed.