Emerging community reports of the highly invasive American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) in Hong Kong

Abstract

A broad range of fauna has been transported anthropogenically by accident or intentionally (Eskew et al. 2020;Bezerra-Santos et al. 2021). Amphibians are increasingly popular in the global pet trade, generating appeal from their distinctiveness and reduced space requirements compared to most traditional companion animals (Mohanty and Measey 2019). The pet trade plays an important role in non-native species reaching new environments, either from owners abandoning pets (Stringham and Lockwood 2018; Lockwood et al. 2019) or animals escaping (Liu and Li 2009; Mo and Oliver 2020). It has been documented that the trade in live amphibians as pets is associated with the majority of amphibian introductions outside their native range (Kraus 2009). A number of invasive populations of amphibians are also associated with cargo and luggage stowaways (Kraus and Campbell 2002;García-Díaz and Cassey 2014;Mo 2017;Hong et al. 2022). In many parts of Asia, captive animals are also released by members of the public as part of a Buddhist act believed to build spiritual merit (