# New articles~ Snakes and cane toads!



## wattso (Dec 15, 2003)

http://www.abc.net.au/darwin/stories/s1008869.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1008340.htm


----------



## Slateman (Dec 15, 2003)

I hate toads


----------



## wattso (Dec 15, 2003)

Toads are JUST toads Slatey. Hate the fools that introduced them!


----------



## sobrien (Dec 15, 2003)

Well, I hate both!
There, I think we have covered all aspects.


----------



## wattso (Dec 16, 2003)

I was hoping for some intellegent discussion, perhaps some incidental info, an inspirational idea perhaps...........sigh.


----------



## Amy (Dec 16, 2003)

Just out of curiosity, has anyone looked into infecting the toads with a blood born disease? (ie: similar to AIDS disease) Obviously as they are now so wide spread, chances are any snakes who ate an infected toad would get the disease as well but if we could have looked at it when they were first introduced it could have been a way to eradicate the problem.

Problem is that we continually introduce one preditorial species to control another (ie. the toads were introduced to control the cane beetle) and we cant predict what will happen once a certain food source has be decimated, obviously another needs to take its place and unfortunatly in this case, it happens to be the same food source that snakes also use. The Top End snakes are really getting a raw deal because not only is their food source being reduced dramatically but as the cane toads are so toxic, once they get eaten, the snake also dies from the poison. 

I shudder to think what will be introduced to try and control the Cane toads.


----------



## Lunar_Psycho (Dec 16, 2003)

What measures are currently in place for cain toad control and eradication Australia wide? 

Cheers, Jay


----------



## Amy (Dec 16, 2003)

Scientists at the CSIRO Animal Health Laboratory in Victoria have been searching for biological controls of Cane Toads and in 2001 they began investigating gene technology as a mechanism of control. Scientists at the University of Adelaide have isolated a sex pheromone in a native Australian frog; they hope that a similar pheromone will be found in Cane Toads and that it could be used to disrupt their breeding cycle. 

The main controls on the spread of Cane Toads in southern Australia are quarantine checks and public awareness and response. One publicity campaign on the north coast of New South Wales resulted in 100 people collecting more than 900 Cane Toads. Toads can be excluded from garden ponds and dams by a 50 cm high barrier such as an thick hedge or a wire mesh fence. 

Predators of Cane Toad tadpoles in Australia include dragonfly nymphs, water beetles, Saw-shelled Turtles and Keelback Snakes. Keelbacks also eat young toads; laboratory tests have shown that they can tolerate low levels of toad toxins. Young or adult Cane Toads are eaten by wolf spiders, freshwater crayfish, Estuarine Crocodile, crows, White-faced Heron, kites, Bush Stone-curlew, Tawny Frogmouth, Water Rat and the Giant White-tailed Rat. Some predators eat only the toad's tongue, or attack its belly and eat only the mildly poisonous internal organs. 

http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/canetoad.htm


----------



## Amy (Dec 16, 2003)

Cane Toads eat almost anything they can swallow, including pet food, carrion and household scraps, but most of their food is living insects. Beetles, honey bees, ants, winged termites, crickets and bugs are eaten in abundance. Marine snails, smaller toads and native frogs, small snakes, and small mammals are occasionally eaten by Cane Toads.

from the above website as well


----------



## Lunar_Psycho (Dec 16, 2003)

Is it true that if you find cane toads your supposed to kill them yourself if your incapable of taking them somewhere else for destruction?


----------



## Amy (Dec 16, 2003)

I think so. I read somewhere that the most human weay of killing them was to put them in a bag and freeze them.


----------



## saikrett (Dec 16, 2003)

how stupids were the people that introduced them. How is something that can't fly going to iraticate a flying beatle? Someone needs to think before they act.


----------



## Lunar_Psycho (Dec 16, 2003)

They were desperate for a solution to the cain beetles, and as far as they knew the toads were going to eat the stupid things. Its just a plan that back fired. With that said I still say destroy the toads :twisted:


----------



## Amy (Dec 16, 2003)

a female can lay over 35 000 eggs in one season and can lay twice every year. Once the eggs are laid, tadpoles hatch between 24-38 hours later and tadpole stage only lasts on average 12 weeks (depending on food supply, climate etc.) These tadpoles can start breeding at 1 year of age. To simply go out with a shovel, although tempting and a good way to relieve stress, is not going to be very effective.

Does anyone know if they are A-sexual? All that I have read talks of a male and a female. What if there was a way of injecting a certain something into the toads which made them steryle and that could be passed on come breeding season?


----------



## Lunar_Psycho (Dec 16, 2003)

Thats a LOT of toads :shock: 
Cain toads were originally introduced to eat cane beetles, but instead they went after native animals. If a virus, etc. were introduced into the cain toad population, theres a chance that it could eventually evolve and be passed onto native amphibians or to other animals. This is the same issue Australia was faced with before introducing the cain toad in the first place, attempt to slowly erradicate the current problem or risk introducing something foreign aimed at the current problem and hope for the best. 
Years from now people might be talking about the horrible virus that wiped out a lot of animal species in Australia, and verbally abuse the idiots that released it (just like were doing now with the toads).


----------



## saikrett (Dec 16, 2003)

i guess theres not much we can do


----------



## wattso (Dec 16, 2003)

Thats more like it, intresting stuff.

Amy, you said~

What if there was a way of injecting a certain something into the toads which made them steryle and that could be passed on come breeding season?

How would it be passed on if they were sterile?  

Also~ 
Just out of curiosity, has anyone looked into infecting the toads with a blood born disease? (ie: similar to AIDS disease) Obviously as they are now so wide spread, chances are any snakes who ate an infected toad would get the disease as well but if we could have looked at it when they were first introduced it could have been a way to eradicate the problem. 

Snakes that eat them die, well befor the disease could take hold.  

These are better ideas than some though. I think we need some way of biologically weakening the eggs, make them prone to failure somehow, would slow the population down enough to try other methods. perhaps a genetic tweak to cause egg defomaties resulting in a high percentage of mortality befor reaching tadpole stage.?


----------



## Lunar_Psycho (Dec 16, 2003)

I think what Amy meant by "passing the virus on come breeding season" is not that it would be passed on through conception, but rather it would be passed to other cane toads when they gathered to mate.
I still believe that if it were possible to weakon cane toad eggs by some biological means, that theres a chance it could affect the whole amphibian population of the area its released into. If anything biological were to be used I believe it should be something to identify cane toads, their eggs, and their locations, without risking harm to existing animal populations aswell. Perhaps introducing something into the gene pool that would allow cane toads to be registered on some sort of high chemical or unusual visual frequency which allows for the toads to be detected using technological equipment, but which cannot be detected by other animals. 

Also, does anyone know of any animal(s) whose diet solely consists of Cane Toads? Not suggesting they be introduced (weve seen the results of that so far), just curious.


Cheers, Jay


----------



## Amy (Dec 16, 2003)

Wattso, very true, I didn't write very clearly. What I was meant to say is that what if we could possibly make it so that only the tadpoles once hatched were sterile? The adult toads would still breed and although a very long term project, eventually all the adult toads would die out. And all the younger ones wouldn't be able to reproduce? This would only work if Cane Toads are not 
A-sexual.

As for my disease idea. I agree, it wouldn't work fast enough to become effective and even then, would kill more than just the Cane toads.

As far as making eggs prone to failure, this could only be effective if there was a high mortality rate and for that to happen enough toads would have to be affected. And enough generations born with this genetic "tweak".

One thing that is very obvious here, it is a whole lot easier to put holes in peoples theories than come up with even one that doesn't have a huge risk factor or possibility of back fire. Now I know what the scientists faced when they were looking at erradicating the Cane beetle. It seems to me that we have to accept that nothing will be perfect and that there is always a high chance of fallout. We simply have to find that which has the least effect on our native environment and accept the consequences that will come from introducing a non-native species into such a isolated and unique environment such as our own.

Jay, as far as I know, there isn't any specific non-introduced animal that feeds solely on Cane toads for the main reason that they are so high in toxicity. A diet solely consisting of Cane Toad would kill very quickly.


----------



## wattso (Dec 16, 2003)

How about introducing massive numbers of keelbacks[oz native] to areas where the toads are highest in number? keelbacks apparently can eat them without ill effect [if memory serves me, though i may be wrong] these could be wild caught, although some might argue this would upset the keelback gene pool, disturb habitats etc etc. but any native[to us]animal would be better than introducing another exotic.????????????????????????
http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/canetoad.htm

According to the above site yabbies are predators to cane toad eggs/tadpoles, I wonder if releasing these in canetoad breeding waters might work in large numbers? i dont see what harm that could do!


----------



## Amy (Dec 16, 2003)

If you look on the first page, in one of my posts there is a list of predators of the cane toad in all its stages of life. I agree with you Wattso, we should see if there is anyway we could introduce a larger number of a native species into toad infested areas before those areas become larger. But even introducing a native species into another environment or introducing a large quatity of of said native species will still have a detrimental impact on the environment. Whether this would be better or worse than an introduced species I dont know.


----------



## africancichlidau (Dec 16, 2003)

When I was breeding Litoria Infrafrenata I supplied thousands of Taddies to CSIRO for their research into a virus which stopped the toad taddies from metamorphing. Don't think they've had much luck isolating the virus to the toad yet though


----------



## Fuscus (Dec 16, 2003)

We are a lot more careful with officially introducing animals than we were a few decades ago. Scientists have already discovered a number of deseases that would decimate the cane toad population, unfortunatly they are just as effective against native frogs.
Current research is to attempt to prevent the tadpoles from changing into toads, possibly by using a virus specific to to cane toads. Gene technology is also being applied to a number of introduced species.

Anyhow, a good way to reduce the cane toad population is to have a bounty, say 10 cents per toad with ma$$ive fines for running cane toad farms.


----------



## Slateman (Dec 17, 2003)

What are the cane toad farms?


----------



## Lunar_Psycho (Dec 17, 2003)

Looks like theyve already started trying to try to develop something to disrupt development.

http://www.publish.csiro.au/ecos/index.cfm?sid=10&issue_id=2914
(first document)

Jay


----------



## Robert (Dec 17, 2003)

Actually Fuscus that is a good idea.I'm from Brisbane and when iwas younger my mates and i would go on killing spree's.(on toads that is)they were everywhere.Although you would go through stages when there weren't many to be found.
Don't imagine we could do damage to the population but it sometimes seemed like it.
By offering 10cents or so per toad i know i would of cleaned up but this is good insentive.
With the rain up here it's like they have multiplied 10 times.
Kids could make good use of this in return getting a few bucks ans also helping to eradicate a introduced pest.
Still needs to be alot more study done i think on their reproducing tendancies and ways to make them steril.


----------



## Shamus (Dec 17, 2003)

Hi Lunar, an interesting site about the cane toads. Hopefully Government funding has continued although knowing the pollies it would have been reduced substantially. It seems it was a 2 year project which expired almost a year ago so unless someone screamed and it was made very public I would suggest that the National Feral Control Programs funding is either gone or restricted. I could be wrong and I hope I am, perhaps funding has increased until they get a result.
That last sentence was a joke peoples.


----------



## ajler (Dec 17, 2003)

*snakes and canetoads*

Dont hold your breath the govt allocated a million dollars over 4 years (250,000 ) a year and I,m not sure what year it started.The inviroment is,nt a big prioritory with these bludgers, they give themselves bigger super uncreases the freeloading parasites. :evil:


----------



## Lunar_Psycho (Dec 17, 2003)

Is anyone ever trys to make something aimed at the toads again, they should make it for government officials too. Get rid of two problems at once :twisted:


----------



## Amy (Dec 17, 2003)

here here! Get rid of the pollies! Anarchy! 

As for the 10c per toad bounty, it's a good idea, but the toad's toxins can be absorbed through our skin and be harmful. Mind you, it is a good incentive to kill off toadies! But someone would have to supply the money (good luck getting it out of the pollies) and someone would have to regulate the influx of dead toads, sort through each bag to make sure no natives were hammered over the head and then dole out the cash. It could work, but you'd have to make sure people knew how to properly handle the toads so as to not get sick in the process of making a buck


----------



## Fuscus (Dec 17, 2003)

A cane toad farm would be a place where cane toads would be raised for the bounty.
Handling cane toads is not that difficult, they don't release the poison unless squeezed but they will urinate when handled roughly (side story - used to pick tomatos and a rotten tomato fight would break out every couple of hours. Cane toads were also used. imagine a toad landing on your bare back in a pool of cane toad urine). But the people would have to kill them on the spot, transporting live toads is (rightly) an offence.
I can remember when I first lived in QLD we had a major infestation and I used to clear out the property every night using a golf club (It was quick and cheap), on bad nights I'ld kill 50+.
Lastly crows have learnt to kill and eat cane toads. We had a wild crow that used to follow me in the plant nursery, when I'ld find a toad it would be thrown out into the open. THe crow would walk up to the toad, wack it hard between the eyes with its beak, pick the stunned/dead toad up by a back leg and fly off. 10/15 minutes later the crow would be back following me again. I never saw the crow actually eat a toad but I have seen gutted dead toads. Crows are supposed to break the belly skin and eat out the intestines. Unfortunatly toads tend to be nocturnal and only rarly encounter crows.


----------



## phantom (Dec 18, 2003)

i hate the little barstards,they are every where here i drive up my drive of a night and run over at least 10 on the way up and 10 on the way down ,all you hear is pop


----------



## Slateman (Dec 18, 2003)

Now i understand what cane toad farm is. I can't beleive that people would do such a think if the reward would be estbilished. Not here in Australia.


----------



## Amy (Dec 18, 2003)

Well, I think introducing a bounty on the heads of cane toads would be a good idea. Maybe they could impose some kind of restriction on the amount of times you can present toads and the amount of toads presented? Maybe this could slow the cane toad farmers? They might find that the cost of setting up and running a farm would far outweigh the reward?


----------

