PEOPLE

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

Assistant Editor

C

all it one giant leap
for mankind, and an
even greater leap for
frogdom — 30 feet to be exact.
Former Michigander Andy
Koffman is the owner of the
biggest and probably the
longest jumping frogs in the
world. These curious
critters, Conraua Goliaths,
have been known to cover 30
feet in a single jump.
They've been seen hurdling
creeks. And in 1991 they
will join the rich and famous
in The Guiness Book of
Records as the world's
largest frogs.
Now, Koffman, an exotic
animal exporter who lives in
Seattle, Wash., and his frogs
are jumping on the contest
bandwagon. This week, Kof-
fman is taking his Conraua
Goliaths to the Frog Jump-
ing Jubilee at the Calaveras
County Fair in Angel's
Camp, Calif., where he's
sure they will set a world
record for the longest jump.
And to think, it all started
right here in Michigan. It's
enough to make you croak
with joy.
Originally from Flint, Kof-
fman has loved frogs since
he was a boy. The son of a
doctor and a nurse, Koffman
spent his summers in East
Tawas, where his parents
owned a cottage. His
brothers and sister, and even
Koffman's twin, Sandy ("I

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AWOL

They're big, bold and ready to conquer the world in a single bound.

Meet the longest•jumping frogs in the world and the former Michigander who discovered them.

know, I know — Sandy and
Andy," he says), did normal
kid stuff like swim and play
games in the hot, humid
summer months.
Not Andy. He was fas-
cinated by the East Tawas
ponds, where all kinds of
slimy, bug-eyed creatures
lived.
"I wasn't like most kids,"
he says. "I spent my
summers playing with
frogs."
Agog about frogs, Koffman
brought his frog friends
home, where they lived in 47
aquariums in the family
basement. To pay for the
upkeep of his hobby, Koff-
man bred Discus Fish.
By the time he was 18 and

a student at the University
of Michigan, Koffman had
opened his first pet store. He
called it Aqua World.
Koffman left Aqua World
for the rest of the world
when he was 23. He "bought
a plane ticket and flew
around the world," visiting
22 African countries.
He stopped in Cameroon,
where he lived for nine years
in a small village. He had
pets there, too. Gorillas. One
weighed 600 pounds. And he
had friends. "I knew lots of
cannibals and that sort of
thing," he says.
While living in Cameroon
in 1986, Koffman first heard
the call of the wild — the
wild Conraua Goliaths, that

is. He went out exploring,
"places you could only go by
foot. The sun was going
down. And all of a sudden I
heard a sound, an un-
mistakable sound."
He looked out at the
Sanaga River before him,
and there they were: hun-
dreds of five, 10 and even 15-
pound Conraua Goliaths,
big, fat, long-legged
creatures, lazing around the
side of the river, no cares in
the world.
Koffman was speechless.
Like the greats before him —
Christopher Columbus,
Jonas Salk, Albert Einstein
— he had boldly gone where
no man had gone before, and
his dedication had paid off.

"I had," he says, "discovered
the infamous giant frog."
As if this wasn't enough
for any frog-loving man! Kof-
fman watched as the Con-
raua Goliaths began to
move. They were big fellows,
all right, and boy could they
jump! Some even leaped a
good 20 feet across the river.
Koffman knew what he had
to do.
"When I saw them jump,
something in my mind
sparked," he says. "I said,
`Calvaras, here I come.' "
Asking Koffman to reveal
how he got the frogs from
Cameroon to the United
States is like asking a Fren-
ch chef to divulge his best
frog's-leg recipe. Let the

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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