 |
||
 CANE
TOAD BUSTING |
||
| ABOUT US | WHAT'S ON | MEMBERSHIP | TEACHERS | KIDS' ZONE | COMMUNITY | SHOP | VISIT INFO | |
|
|
PRINTING TIPS HOME LINKS FEEDBACK BOOKINGS SITE MAP CANE TOAD BUSTING CONTACT DREAMING DISCOVERY JOHN GOULD FRESHWATER FESTIVAL NYUNGAR KNOW HOW NYUNGAR INCURSION YELAKITJ MOORT DJINOONG FOR STUDENTS DJINOONG FOR TEACHERS NYUNGAR DANCE BUSH TUCKER SNAKES ALIVE SCHOOLS NGOOGENBORO RAPTOR ROCK WATER QUALITY SWAMP SAFARI MUDNMINIBEAST ICKY STICKY FROG FROG FEST TEACHERS RESOURCES POO SCIENCE WHOSE POO WETLAND WARRIORS WETLAND WILDLIFE IMAGES |
STOP
THE TOAD COMMUNITY EVENING Help keep the Cane Toad out of the Kimberley. Find out more about the ‘alien invaders’ from leadingscientists and environmental advocates and what you can do to help preserve our fragile ecosystem.
Over 30 members of the community joined in a night frog walk and sausage sizzle at Herdsman Lake Wildlife Centre in the 'Stop the Toad Community Evening' on Fri Aug 18th. Dr Paul Doughty, Senior Herpetologist at the WA Museum gave a presentation on the Cane Toad's history, identification, impact in
 
Cane toads are expanding
their range across Northern Australia faster than ever expected and are
moving up to 20km in just a few weeks.
 Cane
toads reach extremely high densities in suitable habitat (over 2000
per hectare), and by sheer weight of numbers have a massive impact
on their surrounding environment. They have a voracious appetite
and will eat virtually anything that fits in their mouth - including a multitude
of native insects, frogs, small reptiles, mammals and birds.Cane toads compete with native animals for food and shelter and many native animals die from eating these poisonous toads. The population of frogs, reptiles, mammals and birds has sharply declined in areas invaded by cane toads. Cane toads need water to survive. With only a relatively narrow band of non-arid country between the eastern Kimberley and the Top End of the Northern Territory, the suitable cane toad habitat funnels down to such a relatively small ‘land bridge’ that there is a unique opportunity to halt their march into the Kimberly region. If the toads get through this "bottleneck", their available habitat widens again, making it almost impossible to stop them spreading throughout the entire Kimberley region.
 Cane
Toads were introduced to Australia to eat French's Cane Beetle and
the Greyback Cane Beetle. The 'whitegrub' larvae of these beetles eat the
roots of sugar cane and kill or stunt the plants. The Australian Bureau
of Sugar  Experimental
Stations imported about 100 toads from Hawaii to the Meringa Experimental
Station near Cairns. The toads bred quickly and more than 3000 were released
in the sugar cane plantations of north Queensland in July 1935. The cane
toad did eat some of the beetles when they were available, but as a biological
control agent, it had no impact at all.The most urgent short term action is to implement and refine control measures such as trapping. Effective trapping is not the entire answer but it is a way to protect our preciousKimberley wildlife while we aresearching for a more permanentsolution. Ongoing research into biological methods to control this species is vital.
|
Cane
Toad
distribution in 2002