Frogwatch Reading Answers with Explanation

IELTS Reading Passage: Frogwatch

Frogwatch began life in Western Australia as the idea of Dr Ken Aplin, and it has turned into a genuine success story since. As curator of reptiles and frogs at the Western Australian Museum, Aplin spent long stretches of time out in the field, and it was during these trips that he started wondering whether ordinary members of the public could be recruited to help him keep tabs on frog populations. The plan was simple enough: everyday people with no scientific background would learn a bit about frog habitats, keep an eye on the numbers and species in their own neighbourhood, and pass that information back to the museum.

The project launched in 1995 and has since grown to more than 3,200 members, many of whom say it is the best initiative the museum has ever run. Every participant gets sent a Frogwatch Kit, complete with a newsletter, an audio recording of frog calls, and sheets to help with identification. Membership took a sharp jump when a mysterious fungal disease started killing frogs right across the country. Researchers still do not have the full picture, but they suspect the fungus may have originated overseas, quite possibly in South America, where a genetically similar organism had already wiped out frogs on a massive scale.

With that outbreak in mind, scientists in Western Australia needed a clearer sense of how far the infection had actually spread through the state's frog populations. So Aplin sent out an alert to Frogwatch members asking them to bring in any dead or dying frogs they came across. More than 2,000 specimens have been examined so far, roughly half of them supplied by Frogwatch volunteers and the rest drawn from the museum's own existing collection. Aplin originally assumed the fungus had only reached Western Australia in the previous year or two, but further testing has since pushed that timeline back to the late 1980s.

Frogwatch has turned out to be exactly the kind of public connection Aplin was hoping for, and he's become a firm believer in getting the community involved. He is now aiming to grow the network to 15,000 members, since the museum simply doesn't have the professional resources to monitor frog populations on its own. A lot of frog habitat sits on private land too, which makes public cooperation not just useful but essential.

Not everyone shares Aplin's enthusiasm, though. Dr Dale Roberts, a senior zoology lecturer at the University of Western Australia, agrees that Frogwatch has done a genuinely impressive job of tapping into public interest in frogs, but he's far more cautious about what that popularity actually proves. Widespread public enthusiasm, he points out, is not the same thing as sound science.

Roberts is fine with the idea of the public sending in pages of observations; he just is not convinced those reports carry much scientific weight once they arrive. He's also sceptical of Frogwatch's more alarming messaging around the fungal threat. He notes that the year in question saw a long, dry summer followed by very late, heavy rains, coming right after two unusually dry years, which means there could be several other explanations for the frog deaths besides the fungus. And even if the infection has spread as widely as Frogwatch suggests, he questions whether it is really worth the time and money to act on it, especially since he can still account for every frog species recorded in the south-west over the past decade.

Roberts goes further still, arguing that Western Australia's situation is genuinely different from the rest of the country. While Queensland and New South Wales have seen frog species vanish altogether, that hasn't happened in Western Australia, where new species are, if anything, still being discovered. Only three species from the south-west currently sit on the endangered list. Roberts doesn't think garden ponds in Perth will do much for those particular species, since they live in isolated pockets of habitat that are already earmarked for development.

Aplin sees things rather differently. He argues that expanding the number of frog-friendly habitats matters precisely because so many of Western Australia's frog species are confined to small, tightly restricted areas. Pesticide-free gardens and ponds, in his view, give these animals a better shot at surviving everything from habitat disruption and pollution to shifting climate patterns and now a fungal disease on top of it all. His stance is that when there's still so much uncertainty, it makes sense to apply the precautionary principle rather than wait for definitive proof. Diseases often settle into some kind of natural balance over time, he says, and certain frog populations may eventually co-evolve alongside the fungus, but in the meantime, the damage being done is real.

Meanwhile, Dr Rick Speare, an amphibian disease specialist at James Cook University, has been mapping how the chytrid fungus is spreading nationwide and independently checking the accuracy of Aplin's diagnoses. Speare doesn't hold back in his praise, describing Frogwatch as an impressive, under-recognised system, arguably the best program in the country for channelling public interest into frog biology. As he puts it, there are simply more eyes watching for sick or dead frogs out there than any team of biologists could ever manage alone.

Aplin, for his part, thinks it would be a mistake to underestimate what a community base brings to the table, particularly at a time when government research funding keeps getting squeezed. Ordinary people, he argues, can push back and protest in ways a small handful of scientists working quietly in a lab simply can't. Community involvement, he believes, is fundamental to tackling almost any environmental problem. And beyond the science, Frogwatch has become something of a cultural moment in its own right, a reminder that plenty of ordinary people already understand, instinctively, that frogs are a pretty reliable measure of environmental health.

Questions for Reading Passage: Frogwatch

Questions 1 - 6

Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer of the passage?

In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1. Frogwatch members need a basic level of scientific training.

2. All Frogwatch members live in Western Australia.

3. Frogwatch has proved that frogs are disappearing because of a fungus.

4. Scientists in WA have examined about two thousand frogs collected by Frogwatch.

5. The frog fungus disease has been in Western Australia for more than ten years.

6. New species of frogs have been found in Western Australia recently.

Questions 7 - 12

The reading passage describes the opinions of Dr Ken Aplin, Dr Dale Roberts and Dr Rick Speare in relation to strategies for frog conservation.

Match one of the researchers A-C to each of the statements below.

There may be more than one correct answer. Write:

A - for Dr Aplin

B - for Dr Roberts

C - for Dr Speare

7. Although the involvement of large numbers of people is encouraging, this does not guarantee scientifically valid data.

8. The development of frog-friendly backyards will help to conserve frog species.

9. Although it is possible that frogs will adapt to fungal and other problems in the long term, we should take precautions in case this does not occur.

10. As there may be many other explanations for recent frog deaths, it is not worth spending a great deal of time and money studying this fungus.

11. Because of the unique geography of Western Australia, most frog species in this State are not in danger of extinction.

12. Frogwatch has greater potential for frog observation than is possible by the scientific community.