S Sorrensen
My Place. Wednesday, 6.35am
There’s a frog in my shower. It’s not a big green frog; it’s a small speckled grey-with-green-flecks-on-its-flanks frog. Google calls it a Peron’s Tree Frog, but I’m not sure. I call it S’s Shower Frog.
It’s been hanging in my shower cubicle for a month. It comes and goes, probably to hunt some tucker outside in the bush. Coming and going is easy enough because I built the bathroom myself – there’s a lot of gaps. (I’ve had pythons cruise through.)
Anyway, since I first spied the little froggy fella (or maybe it’s a girl; how does one tell?), I carefully check the shower cubicle before I enter. This is for the frog’s own safety because it likes to sit where the sliding door goes when I shut it. Not good. Frogs don’t understand sliding shower doors. Luckily, I do. And I care about the frog.
A few days ago, in the Brazilian city of Manaus, a jaguar called Juma was featuring in a promotional film for the Rio Olympics. Juma escaped from its handler and was shot with a tranquiliser dart. Then a cop blasted it with a bullet as it staggered towards him. (Lesson #1: The Olympics is toxic for the natives. Lesson #2: Do not stagger towards a cop.)
Ironically, the Brazilian Olympic team’s symbol is a smiling jaguar.
We like animals as symbols (especially for sporting teams), as coats, as dinner, as stuffed toys, as pets, as hunting trophies, as Hollywood animations, and as Asian cures for erectile dysfunction. We just don’t like them as… animals.
A four-year-old boy jumped into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinatti Zoo. Harambe, a silverback gorilla, investigated the incursion, as is his job as a leader of the gorilla mob. He didn’t attack the kid, but Harambe was shot dead by the zoo staff.
There are crocodiles in north Queensland. They hang in water. They eat flesh. It’s not deviant behaviour – like clearfelling brigalow scrub or silting the reef – it’s what crocodiles do. And they’re particularly active at night.
A woman visited Daintree National Park, a north Queensland park famous for its crocodiles, and decided on a night swim. She was attacked by a crocodile.
The immediate reaction was to kill crocodiles, slice open their stomachs, and see if they’re guilty. Bob Katter, a wannabe cowboy and MP, whose latest political advertising depicts him shooting unarmed men, reckons there are too many crocs and we should shoot them too.
Same with sharks. You have more chance of suffocating in bed or seeing action on climate change, than being killed by a shark. Yet various state governments have pursued a policy of vicious retribution towards all types of sharks (some endangered). Drum lines (baited hooks) kill many hundreds of sharks every year. Drum lines also catch dolphins, turtles and dugongs.
Some people hate animals (unless it’s an internet cat). It’s a power thing. Some people are attracted to politics because of their power issues. They need to assert power over whatever they can – disadvantaged people, animals – because their personal inadequacies have generated a disrespect for life in all its forms.
Thankfully, not all people are like that.
Here on the North Coast, rational people are pushing shark-spotting, rather than shark-killing as an effective way to mitigate shark attacks. Nobody, shark or human, gets hurt.
The Shower Frog doesn’t understand sliding shower doors, climate change or habitat destruction, but this little life has found refuge in my shower, and I welcome it.
I don’t close the door on it, I keep the water temperature down, and I keep an eye out for the python.
Because I care.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
