When Frogs Fall Silent: the possibility and challenge of ‘voice’ as a method

Shutian Li

Tadpoles are one of the most commonly observed ‘animals’ during childhood in my home country, China, often serving as a gateway for early engagement with the natural world. Children are encouraged to catch, observe and even feed them at home, while the whole life process of tadpoles growing into frogs is rarely witnessed, as many fail to survive in household settings.

Children trying to catch small fish and tadpoles with fish nets alongside the lake, HongHu Park, Shenzhen. Credit: Shutian Li

Despite this early interaction, we seldom pause to consider how changing urban environments and socio-ecological conditions shape the survival and trajectories of tadpoles into frogs. Moreover, at least 500 kinds of frogs exist in China, but the gradual ‘disappearance’ of frogs from urban landscapes amidst rapid urbanization is rarely discussed in public discourse, despite its relevance to ongoing urban natural governance.

Such relevance is underscored in contemporary biodiversity discourses and reports, where frogs are often highlighted as key ‘indicator species’ due to their sensitivity to changes in ecological environments. It’s particularly relevant in China’s flourishing urban nature governance, which aims to balance urban spatial development with environmental protection. Shenzhen, a mega city in southeast China, where multiple official and informal animal-related urban nature practices have emerged over the past five years and attracted me to conduct my PhD fieldwork.

People successfully caught tadpoles at a summer weekend, LongGang Park, Shenzhen. Credit: Xiao Ying Zi, Shenzhen

However, frogs remain marginal in recent animal geography, both locally and internationally. In animal geography studies, mammals and other charismatic species have traditionally dominated scholarly attention. Though the scope has gradually expanded to include a wider range of species (such as fish, insects and even bacteria), frogs have received little focus, which contrasts sharply with their more visible presence in biological research and biodiversity discourses. Some studies indicate that the deficiency is also a taxonomic bias, continues to be pervasive in scientific literature, but also shapes societal preferences and structures our thoughts (Leather 2009; Troudet et al. 2017; Moore and Wilkie 2019).  

Frogs are not the only species worth exploring in this context, but they occupy a unique position within the Chinese socio-cultural landscape. Historically, frogs symbolized fertility, prosperity and seasonal transitions. They are deeply embedded in broader commodification networks nowadays, playing roles in exotic gastronomy, traditional medicine, and aquaculture industries. Their rich social and cultural significance is entangled within human residents’ daily lives. This article considers the practices of human-frog interactions, rather than focusing on how human residents distance themselves from such animals.

Besides, frogs may provide a new potential for a sensory methodological practice in multispecies studies: one aspect is their fragmented VOICES, and another is their uncertain movements and interactions at NIGHT. The elements come to life in my ongoing fieldwork, which truly engages my whole body and senses, e.g. my eyes (vision), brain (perception), ears (hearing), feet (touch and balance) and even my ‘cyber-body’--mobile phone.

Encounters with frogs: when voices are fragmented or/and in silent

How can I follow a nonhuman ‘actor’ that is too small and moves too quickly to be encountered and observed? Frogs’ voices are always captured in human memory, especially during summer. Voice is a primary signal through which frogs communicate, conveying complex interactions with others (frogs, snakes, humans or their broader environments). Humans perceive frogs’ voices through direct listening and technical recordings, often recalled in narratives or framed as parts of environmental aesthetic experience. However, Prior (2017) critically argues that references to nonhuman soundscape examples normally serve to support visual aesthetic argument, where the positive value of sound and voice is recognized primarily in its relative absence.

Sonic ethnography, soundscape studies and ‘listening’ provide a basic methodological framework for my frog-interaction fieldwork. When I ventured into a park, struggled to seek traces of frogs by listening and identifying their voices within the surrounding ecology and multispecies encounters. I was also reminded of the fleeting and unpredictable nature of such encounters.

It’s a trans-individual process of considering more than human sounds, one that goes beyond merely listening, hearing and recording, but also about asking what sounds and voices can do and how they function in ecological relationships and interactions. This process engages in what Flint (2022) describes as a ‘relational’ practice of sounds, where attuning to more-than-human resonances enables us to rethink the concept of voice, and challenge human voice centrality (Gallagher and Prior 2014).

Fieldwork, however, revealed far more complicated than the methodological framework. Seasonal shifts, fleeting opportunities, and unpredictable encounters with frogs demanded constant adaptation. Part of my fieldwork began with a focus on the frogs found in city parks in Shenzhen, where human can usually easily catch frog voices and encounter them with an abundance of water pools. I joined a night nature observation group, a collective of local nature enthusiasts who organize regular activities about frogs and snakes, walked the same park route with other random participants – those I hadn’t met before and registered for the same activity by chance – and observed how people interact with natural frogs, what those observers’ feelings are, and in turn, how frog shapes human interaction with nature.

Observing frogs, if it is a proper term to describe these participations, it’s more like we preset a certain connection between the voice of frogs and existence/presence of frogs on summer nights, encapsulated in an uncertain, fragmented, non-linear, rising and falling intermittent voice assemblage.

Ornate Pigmy Frog was spotted with flashlights during night observation, Shenzhen Garden Expo Park. Credit: Shutian Li

Guided by the frog voices, we approached them with light steps, yet at times, the fragmented symphony polyphonic of diverse frog species blended together, leaving us disoriented. However, as autumn arrived, the ‘sonic method’ seemed to lose its relevance and be out of use. Still on the same route in park with other observers, I experienced a shift in human-frog interaction in my first autumn night observation, where instead of hearing frogs croaking, but encountered the opposite: silence. Relying on flashlights, I found myself casting bewildered glances around, my whole body no longer serving its usual purpose anymore in such a dark and silent environment. Others who first participated in autumn also remarked on this shift, sharing a similar sense of disorientation. There’s no doubt that I and other novice participants spent much more time finding and encountering frogs without their voices now than before. As frog voices ‘disappeared’, the group members and I anxiously anticipated the frogs’ elusive jumps, knowing that tracking frog jumping had become far more difficult at the same time.

When frogs fell silent, they challenged and destabilized the centrality ways of voice –an encounter we were familiar with, having previously experienced the presence of frogs through their croaking.

Frogs’ croaking—whether it is a temporal and spatial entangled moment, a tool or a method—reflects that frog voice matters. Frogs and their croaking embody a fragmentary, polyphonic assemblage across seasons, days and nights; coexisting with frog voices that lead us to a clearer trail for human interaction and documentation.

The change in seasonal conditions, such as this autumn case in Shenzhen, seems to provide another response that contrasts with the previously understood methodological context of voice. Encounter returns indeterminate when frogs’ croaking fades. The absence of frog voices presents and reminds us of the existence of silence and its power for hiding and concealing, where investigators need to find other ways to repair the gap if we are eager to encounter these tiny frogs. For example, external light from equipment can assist in locating frogs; yet human footsteps, as another form of disturbance in a tranquil environment, might prompt frogs to either flee or become less detectable.

Conclusion

During the fieldwork, ‘voice’ as a method can’t be simply regarded as a solution, but it raises another concern going beyond. Acknowledging the value of sounds, sonic geography challenges visual perception dominance and reflects on the approaches based on vision. But if we take the soundscape and sensory landscape seriously, then it appears necessary to reflect on silence and sounds themselves. What does ‘frog voice’ mean in the context of tracking and observing frogs? How do we define and recognise it within multi-voices which are entangled together? How can we ‘pick up’ or follow and patch the fragments of frogs croaking, and capture their voices while crossing the fixed spatial boundary? Are all the questions above relayed on what sounds we can hear and identify? If so, the use of human-recognized sounds as a method or pathway, does this inadvertently perpetuate a form of auditory anthropocentrism? I might further question what can be defined as ‘silence’ in such natural frog observation in cities.

Moreover, what if ‘silence as a method’?

Silence invites us to reconsider whether silence equates to absence or non-existence, acknowledging the boundaries and limits of human senses. Meanwhile, it is in that aporetic fragment of uncommunication that an experience is communicated. The inability and uncertainty to grasp the experience indicated something different – sometimes, the silence of frogs conveys more than their croaking ever could. Reconizing the limitation of voices and sounds, why not regard silence as part of the spectrum in sensory and sonic environments? I’m considering the possibility of silence as a method to engage with frogs in the multi-sensory ethnography: what can I rely on when darkness and silence come? Would it be a polyphonic assemblage when croaking and silence alternate? And how can I and other participants express and explain this interaction journey?

Shutian Li (LiS151@cardiff.ac.uk)

Shutian Li (she/her) is a second-year postgraduate researcher at the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University, UK, with a focus on more-than-human geography. Her current research explores everyday human-animal interactions and their diverse responses to urban natural governance, with a particular emphasis on frogs. As a multidisciplinary researcher, she integrates insights from anthropology, urban planning, and urban studies, drawing on diverse knowledge and experiences to inspire new perspectives.

References

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Gallagher, M. and Prior, J. 2014. Sonic geographies: Exploring phonographic methods. Progress in Human Geography 38(2), pp. 267–284. doi: 10.1177/0309132513481014.

Leather, S.R. 2009. Taxonomic chauvinism threatens the future of entomology. Biologist 56(1), pp. 10–13.

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Prior, J. 2017. Sonic environmental aesthetics and landscape research. Landscape Research 42(1), pp. 6–17. doi: 10.1080/01426397.2016.1243235.

Troudet, J., Grandcolas, P., Blin, A., Vignes-Lebbe, R. and Legendre, F. 2017. Taxonomic bias in biodiversity data and societal preferences. Scientific Reports 7(1), p. 9132. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-09084-6.