I just heard the front door slam shut, which means that Willow noticed it was open. We try to leave the doors open after the sun sets to facilitate cooling, but whenever Willow notices them open, she jumps up and slams them shut. She's a bit afraid of the dark, I think.

I finally put my plan into action today and fed some bullfrog tadpoles to the Water Monitor. He usually gets rats, but rats are 4 to 6 bucks a pop. Bullfrog tadpoles, on the other hand, are free. They are also a non-native, invasive species. If a pond has bullfrogs in it, you'd better believe that it doesn't have a lot of other things one would expect to find there. Bullfrogs are voracious eaters and can swallow mice, small snakes, other frogs, and just about anything else smaller than their heads. They can take a diverse pond ecosystem and destroy it.
From what I hear, these East Coast natives were introduced to California around a hundred years ago because eating frog legs was in fashion at the time. These days, most people think they've always been here.
Our pond at work, as I've mentioned before, is hopping with bullfrogs. A bunch of us went in and scooped out non-native Duckweed and Elodia, catching six bullfrog tadpoles in the process. Tonight, the Monitor excitedly ate all six and then fished around for more. It's the perfect method of disposing of the critters because they're not being wasted.
Don't get me wrong - I love frogs, but I see what we're doing at the pond as fixing a hundred year old mistake. It's like picking up somebody else's mess. It's a losing battle, but it's helping introduce the concept of "invasive species" to the next generation. Each new generation gets stuck with all of the garbage left behind by all of the preceding generations. Not really fair, is it?