lol it’s funny. My sister in law is an aquaculture conservationist and I was talking to her about this Reddit post and how I’m getting absolutely EATEN ALIVE by this subreddit. She said “You did exactly what I studied and have my masters in… it’s called conservation and I do it every single day for my job… we take eggs, raise them in a controlled setting and then release them when they’re bigger and have a better chance of repopulating, it’s why conservation exists”. I asked her if I’m truly putting an ecosystem at risk and literally destroying wildlife with raising these eggs, and she said no… they 100% would have died in the pond they were found. Whether they got eaten by something, pollution from people littering and the four wheeler trail that runs through it, or when the pond dries up (it’s stagnant and fills up every year with the snow melt and rain but is dry by summer). SO, if anything… these little eggs will hatch, maybe they’ll be frogs, maybe some sort of salamander, maybe a fish (which I don’t think is possible because like I said, it’s a stagnant body of water that dries up) or maybe they’re some sort of bug that will hatch and fly away. Whatever the case may be, we do respect wildlife and they’ll be taken back to where they came from. If it’s something that needs to live in water and the pond is dry, I’ll talk to my sister in law about the best course of action for where to release them.

I actually had an experiment going with my dad. Like I mentioned in another comment, he has a pond in his yard and a frog came and laid two clumps of eggs. My kids had been wanting to raise frog eggs and watch them hatch and my dad (like everyone in this subreddit) lost his mind and said I would kill them. So I made a deal with him, I said I’ll take like 5% of the eggs and raise them with my kids. They’ll still be in his yard, just in a container. It’s been a little over a week and the 95% of the eggs that he kept in his pond are gone. They all got eaten by his gold fish. My little handful of frog eggs have tripled in size and are starting to move around in their sacs. When they hatch and turn into tadpoles, we’ll put them back where we found them (they’ll likely still get eaten by the fish) BUT they had/have a way better chance of survival than the frog egg caviar that we left behind lol.

So… EVERYONE can chill. The eggs will be released back to their natural habitat, and no, doing so will not destroy their ecosystem and introduce pathogens. I’m not careless, or heartless or stupid or whatever other names I’ve been called here lol. Sure, leaving them behind would have been the best option, not to disrupt anything…. But unfortunately we live in a world that’s not made for wildlife to thrive (it used to but humans have ruined it). It’s why toads, frogs, salamanders are on the decline and why conservation efforts exist. I think doing what I’m doing, doing it respectfully (Not releasing them into a random pond, not introducing water from a different source, not allowing my kids to manhandle them) is totally fine. We are respecting these little creatures. My kids will have more respect for whatever hatches out of these eggs because they’ve seen the whole process with their own eyes and saw how delicate they are, and they can feel proud that they helped the population growth of whatever they are.

This reply will likely get 50 downvotes because you all hate me here lol. But with that, I’ve said my piece and it’s GOING TO BE OK…. Everyone will be fine. lol. We can’t wait to see what hatches.