[Birding-Aus] Toads
Graham Turner
seen during my recent trip north. Equally amazing but totally disgusting was
the almost complete lack of effort going in to slow these deadly beasts
down. I think the words I used was 'national disgrace.'
I did see one set up using solar powered lights to 'bait' traps for catching
larger toads. Great idea, lets have another 10,000 of them. Captured beasts
were being converted into fertiliser on a very low tech basis, on a similar
line to the 'Charlie Carp' idea.
Now Prof Rick Shine has an idea, see
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/teacher-toads-to-save-wildlife/2008/05/06/1209839649503.html
Seems a bit kooky but may just work.
Cheers
Graham Turner
Teacher toads to save wildlife
Richard Macey
May 7, 2008
"THERE should be an education drive to warn wildlife about the lethal threat
posed by cane toads, a scientist says.
As part of this campaign, "teacher toads" would be released into the outback
to conduct a school of hard knocks, so to speak.
"At first sight it sounds like a crazy idea," Rick Shine of the University
of Sydney said yesterday.
However, Professor Shine, an expert on cane toads who will outline his plan
today in an address at the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra, is
serious.
Native animals that mistook cane toads for frogs suffered agonising deaths
from the poisons they exuded, Professor Shine said, but animals lucky enough
to survive never repeated the mistake.
He proposed releasing infertile baby male cane toads "many hundreds of times
less toxic" than larger adults, into selected areas ahead of the invasion
front.
Native animals that tried to eat the teacher toads could "feel miserable"
and vomit up the meal but would survive and remember their lesson.
Female toads arriving would also be unaware that the teacher toads were not
only infertile but artificially infected with a parasite that attacked only
cane toads.
Professor Shine said it had long been known that toads and native frogs
carried lung worms. But last month DNA tests revealed worms carried by toads
were native to South America. The worms were often fatal to small cane toads
but harmless to Australian wildlife.
Researchers also found that a natural pheromone given off by injured or
stressed toads could be used as a weapon. Overexposure to this pheromone is
hazardous to toad tadpoles. "It kills about half the cane toad tadpoles but
does not affect native species," Professor Shine said.
But even if the parasite and the pheromone killed 90 per cent of the toads,
the survivors would still pose a threat to wildlife, Professor Shine said."
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Chris Sanderson
While I'm interested in Dr Shine's idea I think the science is still a way
off being able to produce what he requires. If the pheremone and lung worm
truly only affect toads then this is great news and should definitely be
explored. However, you should realise that a single gravid female Cane Toad
can lay 50 000 eggs, so trapping isn't really an option. Miss a few
pregnant females and you have hundreds of thousands of toads next year. The
Cane Toad front seems to travel about 30km a year regardless of efforts to
stop it. This seems to be because they have managed to adapt to the dry
season conditions well enough to survive winter and then move during
summer/wet season when they are pretty safe from interference from humans.
If you have any practical, cost effective suggestions I'm sure the WA
authorities would be particularly interested.
Regards,
Chris
David...@dpcd.vic.gov.au
Graham
A former acquaintance of mine is leading a campaign to 'bust' cane toads
heading towards the WA border (reported in the Age a few months back). It
is a good story but I wonder about long term results.
More recently, I saw an interview with the toad fertiliser fellow who was
advocating barriers to stop toads getting to water and, therefore,
preventing breeding. It seemed a simple, effective and humane approach (if
you discount the fertiliser part).
Regards
David
"Graham Turner"
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Subject
[Birding-Aus] Toads
07/05/08 01:06 PM
Cheers
Graham Turner
cane toads.
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Graham Turner
Sigh.
Graham Turner
Andrew Taylor
> My understanding is that they are already in WA.
Not yet - expect a burst of newspaper stories when the toad front
reaches WA. Along the Victoria Highway the front was said to be 25km from
the WA border at the end of March. So next wet should see toads in WA.
They'll like Kununurra.
Andrew