The small village of Dousman, Wisconsin is obsessed with frogs. There are frog banners hanging from light posts on Main Street, frog flags fly in people’s yards, downtown businesses have frog logos, a frog is painted on the village’s water tower. Dousman has an amateur baseball team, and I probably don’t need to tell you this, but the team name is the Frogs.
The heart of all this frog love in Dousman is the Wisconsin State Frog Jump. People go out, catch frogs, and then compete to see whose frog can jump the farthest. It’s been a cultural-defining tradition in the village for over 70 years.
“All you have to do is tell somebody about it and the look on their face tells you, ‘Oh, this is an absurd thing that I am doing for sure,’” said Dugan Hettich, a longtime frog jumper and member of a dedicated frog jumping family.
But all that tradition is ending, due in part, to one woman who says her mission is protecting frogs.
Credits:
Host/Producer: Dan Wanschura
Editor: Morgan Springer
Senior Producer: Ellie Katz
Additional Editorial Support: Peter Payette, Austin Rowlader
Sonic ID: Nic M. Neves
Episode Art: Mikayla Kerba
Transcript:
[sounds of downtown Dousman]
DAN WANSCHURA, BYLINE: I’m walking through Dousman, Wisconsin. It’s late morning. July. Dousman is a small, classic Midwestern village. There’s a bank. Gas station. Post office. A couple bars. And then I start noticing something about this place. There are depictions of frogs everywhere.
Frog banners are hanging from light posts on Main Street. There are frog lawn ornaments. Frog flags in people’s yards. Frog logos on downtown businesses. The village’s water tower has a frog painted on it. Dousman has an amateur baseball team. And I probably don’t need to tell you this, but the team name is the Frogs.
Clearly Dousman is obsessed with frogs. But why?
The story goes, when the railroad came through this area in the late 1880s, a little village popped up about 30 miles west of Milwaukee. Before it was called Dousman, it was known as Bullfrog Station. The land around it was marshy and boggy. Fast forward to 1955. The village needed a fundraiser to build a new community center. So they thought, “We're Dousman. We're a swamp. Let’s do something with frogs.”
And that’s how the Wisconsin State Frog Jump came to be. People would go out, catch frogs. And then they’d compete to see whose frog could jump the farthest. And they’ve been doing it ever since.
DUGAN HETTICH: All you have to do is tell somebody about it and the look on their face tells you like, “Oh, this is an absurd thing that I am doing for sure.”
WANSCHURA: Dugan Hettich is used to the weird looks. He’s part of a big frog jumping family.
WANSCHURA: Do your neighbors know what you do over here?
DUGAN HETTICH: Yup. They’re dialed in. They know what’s up. They think it’s funny.
WANSCHURA: Dugan is 40. He describes himself as a guy's guy. Drives a pickup. Really into hunting, fishing. Loves to golf. And for one weekend in July – frog jumping. The official competition starts in just a couple hours. So Dugan heads out to his backyard. He caught 24 frogs earlier this week and now he’s gotta figure out which ones are the best jumpers.
DUGAN HETTICH: Watch those frogs, Reagan.
WANSCHURA: He runs the frogs through a practice round with his two daughters, Reagan, who’s seven and Harper, who’s five.
DUGAN HETTICH: This guy might have some potential. Come on.
REAGAN HETTICH: Come on. Get in there.
WANSCHURA: He takes a net and scoops one out of a big rubber bin. It’s a leopard frog. They all are.
DUGAN HETTICH: They're all so unique with different colors and different patterns.
REAGAN HETTICH: Like, this one has, like, ovals, and then that one has, like, circles.
WANSCHURA: They’re green and brown, with dark spots all over their bodies. Little leopards that fit in the palm of your hand. And Dugan babies these frogs. He puts wet towels in their bins so they stay moist and he feeds them wax worms.
Look at this guy. He needs to go on a diet, I think. A little chubby.
WANSCHURA: He puts the frog on the ground. And Reagan sneaks up behind it. DUGAN HETTICH: Ready?
WANSCHURA: She squats on all fours.
WANSCHURA: Okay so she crouches down like a frog and then jumps behind it.
DUGAN HETTICH: Nice.
WANSCHURA: When she lands, the frog jumps. Most of the time, anyway.
DUGAN HETTICH: Yup, that’s what we need to see.
WANSCHURA: Reagan does this for at least three jumps.
WANSCHURA: That's a pretty good...
DUGAN HETTICH: So that was a solid 10 feet with a little bit of sideways stuff going on.
WANSCHURA: Based on the performance, Dugan grades the frog.
DUGAN HETTICH: What do you think Reagan, I think that's a B plus.
REAGAN HETTICH: B plus. Yes!
WANSCHURA: He notes it on his phone, puts the frog in its own container, then moves on to the next one. They do this for all 24 frogs.
WANSCHURA: Twenty-two, weak. … Yeah, so that'll go to like a cousin's girlfriend or something.
WANSCHURA: Like I said, Dugan’s got a big extended family that’s really into this. And he’s the supplier for a lot of them.
[sounds of Reagan jumping a frog]
DUGAN HETTICH: Nice!
WANSCHURA: That was another pretty solid one, wasn't it? DUGAN HETTICH: Yeah, I would say this is a B frog. WANSCHURA: Okay. DUGAN HETTICH: Like, maybe a cousin will jump this, not a cousin's girlfriend.
WANSCHURA: The reason I’m here today is because this 70-year tradition is about to end. But Dugan, his two girls, and a whole lotta others don’t want that. It’s controversial. And it all kind of boils down to this: what’s the best way to love nature?
[sounds of Dousman Derby Days festival]
WANSCHURA: A couple hours later, and the Wisconsin State Frog Jump is officially underway. It’s part of a festival called Dousman Derby Days. And this small community of 2,500 shows out.
WANSCHURA: So there’s like a little Midway. There’s a bunch of carnival games, rides, like a giant slide.
WANSCHURA: There’s food and beer tents, a music stage, a petting zoo. But the baseball field is where the action’s at. This is where the jump happens. The bleachers are packed. There’s people leaning up against the fence. Hundreds are here to jump frogs and just watch.
DUGAN HETTICH: All my people.
WANSCHURA: Oh wow! It’s a big family.
DUGAN HETTICH: It’s not all of them.
WANSCHURA: Dugan’s big extended family is part of the crowd. They’ve got canopy tents, lawn chairs, coolers.
DUGAN HETTICH: This is my uncle Rick, my cousin Brad, his girlfriend Jamie, Renee, Nick. WANSCHURA: Okay. DUGAN HETTICH: Marsha.WANSCHURA: Nice.
WANSCHURA: Dugan introduces me to his cousin Hunter Hettich. Starting back in 2007, Hunter won the competition four years in a row.
HUNTER HETTICH: Four years in a row? Yes. Four in a row.
WANSCHURA: Is that a Dousman record?
HUNTER HETTICH: It is, yeah.
WANSCHURA: Is it really?
HUNTER HETTICH: Yep.
WANSCHURA: Hunter is here with his wife Ashlyn, and their baby girl Emery Rose. She’s just a month old.
HUNTER HETTICH: And she's gonna be jumping her frog. I was the youngest jumper when I was a month old, and now she's gonna be doing the same thing, so. WANSCHURA: You'll hold her? HUNTER HETTICH: Yep. Yeah, just hold her, keep her good, and, you know, have her follow the frog.
WANSCHURA: But for now, it’s Hunter’s turn. Solo.
PUBLIC ADDRESS ANNOUNCER: Now in the ring, Hunter Hettich. Four time consecutive champion.
WANSCHURA: He walks up to the grass behind home plate. He’s got his frog in a coffee container. It's also a leopard frog. (You can jump any kind of frog you want. Some people like bullfrogs. But the Hettichs always jump leopard frogs.)
Hunter gently flips over the container and lowers it to the ground to the starting point. He squats down next to it and looks through a hole in the container to see which way his frog is facing. And then it’s time.
He lifts up the container. Backs away and then lunges toward the frog on all fours. The frog jumps. Once, twice, then three times.
[sounds of Hunter jumping his frog]
That’s how it works. You actually get three jumps in the competition. And then the judges measure. From the starting point to the end of the third jump.
JUDGE: 14-6.
WANSCHURA: Hunter’s frog jumps 14 feet six inches. It’s respectable. But won’t win him any awards. To place in the top 10, you need to get your frog to jump far, sure. But just as important, you need your frog to jump straight.
JP KRONSCHNABEL: There's a lot of strategy. You hit the ground. Um, a lot of people blow on its butt. Um, we also have it to where people scream at the frog. WANSCHURA: Did you say blowing on the butt? KRONSCHNABEL: Blow on the butt, yep. Um, what you wanna do is kinda get super low and see the frog's butt, and you just blow at it.
WANSCHURA: JP Kronschnabel is one of the judges.KRONSCHNABEL: If you make any contact with a frog, you are disqualified. So I mean, we've seen some people literally stomp on a frog. We've seen them hit hats, and that's unfortunately a disqualification, so.
WANSCHURA: Seems reasonable, though.KRONSCHNABEL: Yes. Yes.
[sounds of frog jump]
WANSCHURA: Then another frog jumps. The crowd weighs in.
CROWD: 15-2.
JUDGE: 12 foot 4.
CROWD: Way off. Way off! I’m adding feet now.
WANSCHURA: This spectacle goes on for hours.
[crowd reacting]
WANSCHURA: Jumped straight up in the air.
DUGAN HETTICH: That happens sometimes.WANSCHURA: By midafternoon, the leading length is 16 feet, seven and a half inches. Dugan Hettich is getting ready to go.
WANSCHURA: Do you think you care more about frogs because of this competition because you're a jumper? DUGAN HETTICH: One hundred percent. Yeah, I would otherwise be completely objective towards fr- I would think of them as bass bait, you know? No other reason to have an interest in frogs. But this, we are always concerned about the frogs. You know, it was super dry this year. We were worried. How are they doing? Are they gonna be okay? Are we gonna be able to find them? Is there going to be a shortage?
WANSCHURA: Dugan’s never won the competition. His daughter Reagan on the other hand – she’s won it twice.
WANSCHURA: You gonna cheer for your dad?
REAGAN HETTICH: Go daddy! Go daddy go. Go go go go daddy.
WANSCHURA: It’s not Dugan’s day though. His frog starts out with a little false jump. Just a few inches. Ruins any chance of getting a good score.
REAGAN HETTICH: Daddy, your last one was a good jump.
JUDGE: Eight foot eleven.
WANSCHURA: As the afternoon winds down, the leading jump is 17 feet five inches. Chris Hettich is one of Dugan’s uncles. He’s been coming to this competition for over 50 years. Like Dugan, he’s never won either.
CHRIS HETTICH: If you ain't first, you're last. Just like Talladega Nights, right? Is that how Will Ferrell says it?
WANSCHURA: Just then, Chris’ brother Jim has a really good jump.
CHRIS HETTICH: Oh nice one, Jim. This is gonna be a lot of tape. He got it to jump straight and that’s the key here. That’s a lot of tape. Keeping him straight.
JUDGE: Seventeen five and a half.CHRIS HETTICH: Wow, he’s leading by a half inch.
WANSCHURA: Seventeen feet, five and a half inches. Jim Hettich’s frog launches him into the lead. And none of the other 228 frogs who jumped today can top it. Day one is in the books. Day two is tomorrow. It’ll be the very last day of the very last Wisconsin State Frog Jump. And the reason it’s the last is – in part – because of one woman on a mission.
[break]
WANSCHURA: Rori Paloski has never been to the Wisconsin State Frog Jump in Dousman – but she’s a big reason it’s ending. And she’s proud of that.
RORI PALOSKI: I think that I thought that I would probably have, like, one, one or two chances in my career maybe to do something like this, to update the regulations, where it's really a lasting impact and will dictate how animals are protected.
WANSCHURA: Rori works for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. She and a team of colleagues spent about a year working on the state’s rules for reptiles and amphibians. The rules were old – like over 30 years old. So Rori and the team proposed a bunch of changes. But there’s two really big ones. The first: you can no longer catch native reptiles and amphibians and keep them as pets. Instead, you gotta release them after 24 hours.
PALOSKI: You can't go pick up a cardinal and…bring it home and keep it as a pet, right?
WANSCHURA: Why should frogs and turtles be any different? The other big change has to do with competitions. Under the new rules, you can’t catch a frog and enter it in a frog jump. Same thing with turtles and turtle races. The reason the DNR wanted these changes was to limit the spread of disease.
PALOSKI: And there's, you know, disturbingly getting to be more and more diseases that can impact amphibians and reptiles.
WANSCHURA: There’s chytrid fungus.
PALOSKI: Ranavirus.
WANSCHURA: Snake fungal disease.
PALOSKI: There's a salamander chytrid fungus that's in Europe.
WANSCHURA: It’s caused 90 to 100% mortality in some salamanders in Western Europe.
PALOSKI: And so disease was a big issue for us looking at this.
WANSCHURA: Like it’s not a huge problem here yet, but Rori and the DNR don’t want it to become one because if you wait until a disease is a problem – it's too late. So, they’re not waiting. Which for Dousman means no more going out and catching a frog and jumping it in the competition.
WANSCHURA: Do you worry, like, it might impact people's interaction with nature and how they might care for a certain species?
PALOSKI: One of my comparisons I provide when I get asked this question is birds, right? … I don't know if collecting a bird has ever been legal…right? And look at the birding recreation industry, right? It is unarguably the most popular type of wildlife to see. And so people did not have to catch birds and keep them in their house to have this fascination with birds.
WANSCHURA: What Rori’s advocating – it’s passive observation. Look more, touch less. You can still be connected to frogs without jumping them. But for Dugan Hettich, that’s a tough sell.
DUGAN HETTICH: Nobody's out looking at frogs with binoculars and identifying them. So that's a super unique little like niche of reality that I just don't think is relevant here.
PALOSKI: It's so much effort, taking the animals out of their natural environment. You know, it's not generally a lotta times great conditions. The way you get frogs to move is by scaring them…repeatedly, over and over and over again. And so it's not healthy for the frogs to be in that situation, right?
WANSCHURA: In March, the governor – a Democrat – signed the new regulations into law. They’ll go into effect on January 1 of next year.
COURTNEY BUNDERSON: We had zero idea that we were a concern.
WANSCHURA: Coutney Bunderson is the committee chair for the Wisconsin State Frog Jump. She’s part of a four-generation family of frog jumpers. And she does not agree with Rori.
COURTNEY BUNDERSON: I feel like a lot of the concerns she brought up, I could've cleared up in a conversation. Or just attending, 'cause you see that, like, what their concern is…I don't feel like is what is really happening.
WANSCHURA: Most people in Dousman are like Courtney. They feel like these regulations are stupid and were sprung on them without warning. As far as I can tell, there’s only two other frog competitions in the state besides Dousman’s. I couldn’t find any turtle races. So these new rules almost felt like an attack. That’s how Joel and Jeanine Parriseau see it.
JOEL PARISEAU: Well, did she come here? JEANINE PARISEAU: No. She sat in her office. JOEL PARISEAU: You know? Where’d she do this– up in, where's her office? Madison? Oh, okay.
JEANINE PARISEAU: She sat in her office and just made up her own mind.
JOEL PARISEAU: Yeah. Tell her to come here. Why ain't she here this weekend? JEANINE PARISEAU: Yeah, exactly. JOEL PARISEAU: Why ain't she here this weekend? JEANINE PARISEAU: If you feel that strongly about it, be here.
WANSCHURA: There is a governor’s race in Wisconsin this November. Some people, like Dugan’s uncle Jim Hettich, think flipping the office from Democrat to Republican could maybe get the regulations reversed.
JIM HETTICH: And where it starts is they stop our frog jump…then what's next? They're gonna, they're gonna take deer hunting away – a traditional Wisconsin thing? That's what they're after. This is, this is just a small bite of what, where there's, the liberals are starting. Screw the liberals.
PALOSKI: It's a tough situation, right? I mean, that's what my job is. I have to look at all sides of it, and I know I'm never gonna make everyone happy, and I wish I could. I feel bad when people are not happy. But I need to look at…the big picture and do what…we think is best for the populations in Wisconsin.
[sounds of Dousman Derby Days]
WANSCHURA: Day two of the Wisconsin State Frog Jump is a lot hotter.
WANSCHURA: And you got the fan to keep them cool.
DUGAN HETTICH: Yeah, you can tell they’re hot.
WANSCHURA: Yeah
WANSCHURA: Dugan has a fan blowing on his frogs under the canopy tent. A long line of jumpers slowly cycle through the ball field. The competition is starting to wind down.
[crowd reaction to frog jump]
At this point, Marsha Brenning – one of Dugan’s aunts – is in the lead. Her frog jumped 18 feet, one and three quarter inches. But she paid the price. She’s got two skinned up knees from lunging after her frog.
MARSHA BRENNING: I haven’t jumped a frog in 10 years. My kids are always begging me to do it, and I’m like no just let me take pictures and enjoy watching you guys.
WANSCHURA: Knowing this was the last year, changed that for her.
MARSHA BRENNING: Just the thought of never getting to do it again kinda thing. And I’m like nope. I’ve got to do this!
WANSCHURA: Then the one month old baby is up. Emery Rose Hettich. Her mom Ashlyn is cradling her down near the frog. And her frog takes off jumping.
[sounds of frog jumping and crowd reacting]
JUDGE: Ladies and gentlemen we have a new first place at 20 feet even.
[crowd reaction]
WANSCHURA: 20 feet in three jumps. Not only does that put Emery Rose in the lead, but it also gives her the new state record. One that stood for 52 years.
JIM HETTICH: Wooh! Ring the bell baby!
[sounds of bell ringing]
WANSCHURA: Congrats you guys. HUNTER HETTICH: Thanks!
WANSCHURA: That’s pretty wild. HUNTER HETTICH: That is insane.
ASHLYN HETTICH: Yes!
HUNTER HETTICH: That is the record. The longest jump.
ASHLYN HETTICH: Ever. Ever!
HUNTER HETTICH: Trumps every accomplishment that we’ve had here so far. Ever. I don’t think that we’ll ever be able to relive this. It’s amazing.
WANSCHURA: And with that, Dousman’s frog jump comes to an end after 71 years. Oh but there is one more thing Dugan has to do.
[sound of truck door slamming]
DUGAN HETTICH: You know it's hot when you get out of your air-conditioned vehicle and your sunglasses fog up. WANSCHURA: Yeah, it's a little muggy. DUGAN HETTICH: Yeah.
[walking through tall grass]
WANSCHURA: He brings the frogs back to the marsh where he caught them and let’s them go.
DUGAN HETTICH: All right Bye. Look at that monster. Like, how did-
WANSCHURA: Yeah, that was a good jump.
DUGAN HETTICH: That was five and a half feet, for sure. Back, go back. That’s it.
WANSCHURA: That’s it.
DUGAN HETTICH: Put them back and let them go. This was cool.
