Australians, Comments on the Cane Toad

[rspassey]

Hello all,

I have been assigned to do a project for my Biology class in which I am supposed to write a letter to the EPA of Queensland voicing my opinions about the Cane Toads. Due to the following reasons, I have choosen to try and convince the Gov. of Australian to eradicate the Cane Toads (This is all just for fun, I am not really sending them a letter).

1) Their poison is a health risk to ourselves and our children
2) Their poison is also a risk to the existance of native species
3) Since their introduction to Australia (to be used to control the Cane Beetle and other Grubs) they haven't completed their goal (they don't eat the grubs or beetles)
4) Disruption of natural ecological succession

I was wondering if anyone, who has lived or is living in Australia would be able to comment on the Cane Toads, as I think it would be interesting to include some sort of reference to how Australians view the issues with the Cane toad and what they believe should be done.

We are supposed to go off of information we got from a video no the cane toad, but that video is quite a few years old... so the opinions of people in the video have most likely changed (as many of them enjoyed the toads).

Thanks,
Ryan

[avx]

I remember seeing an episode of "Crocodile Hunter" with Steve Irwin. The entire episode was about non-indiginous species, and their effects on the native wild life. The Cane Toad is very disruptive, as you said, the poison that they produce kills almost all wild life that eats it, sp it has no natural predator, which disrupts the natural order of things. Australia is plagued with many animals that are not native to it, and most australians deal with it the same way, they do their best to get rid of them. Steve spent the entire episode collecting dozens of cane toads, in the end it was futile he said, they reproduce far to fast.

I dont understand why you would have to convince the Gov. I was under the impression that they already had a plan in place to help control and eliminate the Cane toad population.

[rspassey]

Oh, it is simply just a project in our studies of ecological succession... just so we can see the ways that non-native introduced species can cause so much damage. I think I will also try and relate it to the beavers of Tierra del Fuego, who don't have any predators, but at the same time it isn't cold enough for them to grow a thick pelt (and thus aren't hunted)... all they do is chop down trees.

I have the paper pretty much down, but the film we watched was 10 or more years old, and at that time some of the people they talked to had the cane told as a pet and didn't want them to be eradicated... I was just wondering if this was still how some people felt or not.

[mbossman2]

there are several similar examples, but one that I can think of re: Australia specifically and that was the introduction of rabbits into the ecology...

while eradication might appear to be the solution, the reality is that it is almost impossible to wipe out a species without some sort of ecological collateral damage: like bringing in foxes to wipe out the australian rabbits and foxes end up killing easier prey (like sheep) instead of the intended target.

I would phrase my letter to say something along the lines of being cautious in implementing a campaign against the toads...study not only the primary effects, but also the secondary, tertiary (and farther) effects to ensure something unexpected doesn't pop up.

[rspassey]

I am actually going to propose a small scale quarantine of the toads to monitor the effects on the evironment in that selected area.... then, from there, the gov. would be able to analyze the long term effects if they started a large scale removal of the cane toad.

[Danny G]

Golf Clubs I say!!!!!!!!!

No seriously, their only prey I know of is crows, with some having learnt to rol;l them over and eat their guts out. Everyone knows they are bad and spreading, just people need to spend the funds now to do something.