An Australian researcher has suggested a number of new, radical methods to reduce the pest cane toad (Bufo marinus), prevalent in the warmer regions of the country.
An Australian researcher has proposed a controversial new method of controlling cane toads -- by introducing them into areas where they currently do not exist. Photo: Cane toad (Bufo Marinus)in Springbrook National Park, Qld. Credit froggydarb
The war to eradicate the dreaded cane toad in Australia has been waged since the toads were first introduced into the country in 1935 to eradicate the greyback cane beetle which was decimating the sugar cane crops in the country's north.
However with no natural predators, the toad soon spread, killing native wildlife with its excreted poison and overtaking their habitat.
Now cane toad researcher Professor Rick Shine has devised a controversial scheme to release toads into toad-free regions to help save the native wildlife.
The scheme sounds counter-intuitive however Prof. Shine insists the tactic could help teach native wildlife to avoid the toad.
"...the toad front is moving at 40-50 km a year," he told the ABC's AM programme.
"Nothing that anybody has done has slowed it in the slightest, it's absolutely clear that the toads will be in those areas within a few months and that the mortality will be massive, so at the very worst we would slightly move a little bit of that mortality forward."
His scheme involves dropping a number of small, sterile male toads in areas where the toads do not currently exist but are expected to within a few short months. He said it would give local wildlife a "taste" of the poisonous toad making them sick, but being undersized, the wildlife would not ingest enough poison emitted by the cane toad to die.
Prof. Shine said the local wildlife would soon learn to avoid the toad when its larger cousins arrive in future months.
"Things like frogs, fishes and some of the small mammals all turn out to be remarkably fast learning [when it comes] to leave toads alone after they've had that first experience, as long as the first experience is a toad that's small enough not to be fatal," he said.
However Prof Shine controversial programme has been described as "absolute folly" by Darwin cane toad controller Graeme Sawyer.
"I would not be supporting any plan to introduce cane toads into areas where they haven't got to already," he told the ABC. "There's still enough evidence to suggest that we can really slow down and minimise the damage cane toads are causing if we put our minds to it, but introducing them into country where they haven't got to I think would be absolute folly."
Prof Shine said he has the utmost respect for people such as Mr Sawyer but maintains the spread of cane toads will only be stopped through biological means. He described the most promising of these is a parasitic worm which was introduced with the cane toad, which researchers found does not kill native species.
"...it turns out that the worm is actually a South American species that's come across with the toads, and it doesn't attack Australian frogs...so it looks like we really have a toad killer," he said.
View blog reactions
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)
Advertising
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)