The propeller plane passed through thick clouds, twisting and dipping in the wind like a toy on a string. Its flight to Montserrat—a small volcanic island in a chain of more than a dozen Caribbean territories and nations that curves from Puerto Rico to South America—was just 20 minutes. For 28 of the plane’s occupants, though, it was the culmination of 30 hours of travel from Europe, plus a decade of labor. The pilot and the plane’s lone human passenger, Luke Jones, sat in seats up front; the 28 crouched on shredded paper, each within a cloth bag nested inside one of six wooden crates. If any of those 28 frogs called out in instinctive recognition of their ancestral home, it would have been impossible to hear over the engines’ roar. But when the plane landed and the engines shut off, the animals were deathly silent.
Song of the Mountain Chicken (bioGraphic, October 31, 2019)
