Stopping Lizards From Eating All My Frogs!

how you going recently I came face to face with the biggest ethical decision of my life and no it isn't whether I should tell my friend that it is I that is putting pasture in his shoes but the decision on which animal is the rightful homeowner of my pond so let me give you the rundown since an early age I have always had an obsession with animals and have always wanted a frog pond and now that I am older and have developed the body capable of digging a hole in the ground I decided to make one at first things were going pretty great the tadpoles were happy Iowa's happy the world was happy it seemed as though I had created a harmonious healthy ecosystem of which I could be proud of but then these boys showed up now I call them frog Slayers 69 but they are more commonly known as Eastern water skanks they are native to Australia and my garden and there is nothing nail off more than sipping mojitos chilling by the pool swimming in the pool and eating my tadpoles and frogs now I don't want this as I created a pond for frogs not a luxury hedonistic or you can eat buffet brothel for lizards [Applause] I was gonna have to do something about it as I started to do some research into my options I realized I was faced with a massive ethical conundrum on whether I as a dude that likes frogs should intervene and disrupt the natural circle of life I started to look for professions that faced a similar problem to mine like work as a KFC or film makers in which their work involves observing animals experience life and death film makers usually observe the environment they are in and don't intervene they generally agree amongst themselves that they shouldn't intervene if their actions would alter the environment and ecosystem in a significant way and many documentary makers have let animals die while staying loyal to this idea for example during the filming of Planet Earth - David Attenborough and his crew chose not to intervene when a baby elephant was dying from thirst and I have to tell you I haven't cried that hard since Godzilla died David Attenborough responded to criticisms by saying this was a natural cause of events and intervening would actually make things far worse by responding than not adding that it was very important to simply observe this seems like a very brutal stance and I thought maybe they follow this moral high-ground as watching animals get eaten and dying makes for more interesting TV following this same logic I shouldn't intervene in the environment by removing the lizards as I'll be taking sides I'll be creating a subjective battle of good versus evil frogs versed lizards Jedi versus the Empire coca-cola versus Pepsi my mum versus my dad by choosing to save the frogs I'll be placing a higher value on their life than the lizard's when in fact both these animals deserve to live equally I guess I need to understand that predators and prey have a complex relationship that has existed a lot longer than society's ethics and I have no right to play God and intervene in nature arranging it in a way that appeals to me but then again the circumstances I am faced with her not exactly the same as the filmmakers is firstly my name isn't David and secondly I made the pond in the first place so I'm not dealing with a natural event that dude made once after doing some further research I found out that there was another time that during the filming of Planet Earth - David and his crew actually chose to intervene and save the lives of some baby sea turtles that were seduced by the lights of the city and were waddling towards a busy highway instead of the ocean their reasoning for this was that has the problem that animals were experiencing was man-made they felt it appropriate to step in so this is where the filmmakers draw the line or David and his crew just hate elephants as my pond is man-made it is probably ethical for me to intervene and take the steps to try and save my little frog oohs without harming the lizards started considering trapping and relocating lizards but I came to the realization that I kind of developed a crush in the lizards like how can he not there so scallion and bold and that I didn't really want my pond to be absent of them at the moment the lizards literally sit on the edge of the pond and wait for movement and then they leap forward and eat the frogs it's kind of like shooting tadpoles in a barrel so I thought I'd find a way to kind of tip the scales in the favor of the frogs at first I thought maybe I could distract the lizards with a sexy lizard like how can they resist and I thought the lizard's be so warning they wouldn't possibly be able to think of feeding food but that didn't really work well where's the lizard poster gone wait where's my sexy lizard poster what is that what are you doing are you d Ken then I thought I could create something that would disturb the water surface as the lizard seemed to hunt by movement so all I did was install this pump which causes the water to flow and disrupt the surface confusing the crap out of the lizards and it kind of seems to be working like as soon as I turn it on the lizard's run towards it knife and fork in hand and just sit on the edge and stare at it so I think maybe the lizards will still be able to hunt and live in my pond but frogs will have a fighting chance there you go so now I've created a man-made solution to a mad main problem and going back to that event in which David had a Bernese crew chose not to intervene in saving a baby elephant if you look at the bigger picture you could probably argue that the crisis the elephant was facing was actually a man-made as global warming and land clearing in that region would have had a massive impact on the prevalence of water so maybe David should have sacrificed getting an interesting and tragic event on video and given that elephant some water or just installed some pond pumps your move David thanks for watching if you liked them make sure to subscribe and check out my other stuff awesome thank you so much to my Patriots if I could I would kiss you [Music]

Channel: I did a thing

Views: 566,950

Rating: 4.9020472 out of 5

Keywords: lizard, eat, frogs, lizard feeding, reptile feeding, eats, lizards eating frogs, feeding lizards, feeding animals, feeding reptiles, reptile channel, i did a thing, stopping lizards from eating all my frogs, eating, lizards eating, training lizards, training, handling, frog

Id: WGWbIc5DRhY

Length: 6min 26sec (386 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 25 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TryNottoFaint]

I have an outdoor pond with goldfish and snails and things and sometimes it's a snake/raccoon/blue heron feeder. Sorta like my bird feeder is sometimes a cat feeder.

[u/Strive_for_Altruism]

Leave it to the aussies to make a video about pond ecosystem balancing hilarious

[u/[deleted]]

I'm just legit sad about the baby elephant.

[u/chris_dftba]

I feel like this was just an overly elaborate 6 minute fuck you to David for letting that baby elephant die.

[u/Hosky42]

I'm just impressed that anyone is brave enough to walk around Australia barefoot.

[u/wolfpack_charlie]

I thought the last point he made was actually pretty interesting. To what extent to humans have to be involved in the animal's predicament before it makes sense for humans to once again intervene and correct the man-made problem? I don't think there is a clear answer to this, and I personally stand by the decisions made by wildlife photographers/researchers in situations like this, regardless of whether they choose to intervene. I think there is strong justification for saving the baby elephant and also for letting it die. Not every situation has a clear good/bad choice.

The only exception I can think of is predator-prey scenarios, where obviously the wolf has to eat, and some portion of the bunny population has to be eaten. This benefits both populations, and if you intervene, you're harming both groups of animals.

[u/PIG20]

Aww, you DEEEKHAAAYD!

[u/SultanOfSchwing]

Attenborough's crew intervened in one of the episodes of the new series dynasties. They built some steps for penguins to climb out of a pit.

[u/oh_hell_what_now]

The problem with the Lizards is that they always tend to do things that smart people don't do. They're lucky they aren't practically extinct.