French people love to eat frogs — or so the stereotype goes.
But one fair in the city of Vittel in eastern France has gone too far, environmentalists warn, with visitors being slated to consume some 7 metric tons of frog legs over one single weekend.
The cause for concerns centers around how most of the frogs the thousands of visitors get to taste are imported from easterly locales, environmentalists said.
“For this event alone, up to 350,000 frogs are caught, especially in Indonesia and Turkey, where frog populations are already in alarming decline,” Charlotte Nithart, of French nongovernmental organization Robin des Bois, said in a statement. “In the EU, such a nature looting coupled with such cruel killing methods would not be allowed, so the logical consequence must be to stop imports.”
Sandra Altherr from the German group Pro Wildlife said in the same statement that it was an unnecessary practice. “Do the visitors know that for their snacks, frogs are amputated alive on the other side of the world?”
France imports dozens of tons of the amphibians’ legs each year, according to trade statistics.
It’s the 49th edition of the event, and runs this Saturday and Sunday.