There’s a little body of water near my building in New York where, a couple months ago, my kids an I found a few hundred tadpoles. The water was bright blue and beautiful and the tadpoles, big, and always swimming around full of life. Over time, the water has gone more gray, and the tadpoles move around a lot less, some don’t seem move at all. Are they hurt? Can I help them? Jenna
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Hi Jenna, Thanks for writing. It’s difficult to diagnose this long-distance. What kind of body of water? How big? Water in lakes and ponds is often clearer in the early spring, because there is not much plankton growing in it. As the weather warms into summer it gets cloudier because it’s full of all kinds of algae and diatoms and the things that eat them. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing that the water is getting cloudier. Do you see any signs that the tadpoles are dying?
If you think the water is really being polluted, you could try calling the nearest New York Department of Environmental Protection (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/home/home.shtml), but aside from that, I’m not sure what you can do to save a pond full of tadpoles. Tom