# Ugly toxic cane toads continue WA spread



## News Bot (May 10, 2013)

UGLY, poisonous cane toads are continuing to spread in Western Australia's Kimberley region and could reach Perth within 10 years, experts predict.

*Published On:* 10-May-13 07:15 PM
*Source:* via NEWS.com.au

*Go to Original Article*


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## SteveNT (May 10, 2013)

Surprised???


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## saintanger (May 10, 2013)

not surprised at all, not much is being done to get rid of them. 1 person killing them wont make much of a difference but if everyone went out and killed as many as possible on a regular basis it would help. oh and i must say humanly kill them


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## B_STATS (May 10, 2013)

Considering people decide what has value and what doesn't why not just decide Cane toad secretions or skins or whatever are SUPER valuable? I mean come on! This World is insane the way everything people want is always negative!


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## SteveNT (May 10, 2013)

?


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## Allan (May 10, 2013)

No, it won't eradicate the problem at all. 



saintanger said:


> not surprised at all, not much is being done to get rid of them. 1 person killing them wont make much of a difference but if everyone went out and killed as many as possible on a regular basis it would help. oh and i must say humanly kill them


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## saintanger (May 10, 2013)

but it would make a difference even if its small, every adult cane toad killed is less 50,000 baby cane toads.

so we should all sit around watching them hop over the border and kill everything in its path, i refuse to.


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## Tobe404 (May 10, 2013)

I wouldn't be surprised if they end up all over Australia.
Something more needs to be done to slow them down.
Sadly I doubt they will ever be wiped out completely.


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## SteveNT (May 10, 2013)

They'll never take Canberra, the government would act! Our jets will see action at last.


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## Skeptic (May 10, 2013)

Allan said:


> No, it won't eradicate the problem at all.



I think you underestimate the destructive force we humans can have. Take the Passenger Pigeon for example. Literally billions of animals wiped out to the point of extinction just through hunting alone. The background extinction rate at the moment is 1000 times higher than normal thanks to human actions so I'm sure if we put our minds to it we can take out one more species  Oh and there's nothing inhumane about a 9 iron to the head. Given the choice between that and the freezer I know what I'd choose.


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## JasonL (May 10, 2013)

Look, they will never take over Canberra, but they will take over any area that gives them; A; the climate and habitat they thrive in and B; a food source... so whilst they will overtake the tropics, that will battle in cooler climates, removing them by hand is a waste of time, they reproduce at a faster rate than anyone can remove them by, whilst you may temporarily slow them, you will never stop them...
How many eggs do pigeons lay? 30,000? its just not the same deal....


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## Skeptic (May 10, 2013)

JasonL said:


> Look, they will never take over Canberra, but they will take over any area that gives them; A; the climate and habitat they thrive in and B; a food source... so whilst they will overtake the tropics, that will battle in cooler climates, removing them by hand is a waste of time, they reproduce at a faster rate than anyone can remove them by, whilst you may temporarily slow them, you will never stop them...
> How many eggs do pigeons lay? 30,000? its just not the same deal....



5 billion birds lay a lot of eggs but I get your point. It isn't the same thing. However, temporarily slowing them while we come up with a better idea is far better than sitting on our hands.


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## JasonL (May 10, 2013)

Better ideas have been worked on for many years, and any "remedy" needs to be thought through for many years.. I am a realist, everyone who is willing is trying to get rid of them but the truth be told, not many people care.... and thats the sad truth, they have been around in qld for many many years.. to daye we have not been able to control rabbbits, foxes, rodents, mynas, hundreds of feral weeds, camels, donkeys, goats, pigs and so on and so on, and none of them have 30,000 babies in one hit!


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## Skeptic (May 11, 2013)

Did you read the article? Local communities ARE making a difference. That's better than nothing.


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## bohdi13 (May 11, 2013)

There should be a bounty put on for them, even if it's 1 cent each haha something needs to encourage people to stop the problem. And nothing will happen if we don't act now, things will become extinct and numerous animals will die. If the government won't do anything about it we have too, obviously I can't... I'm thirteen  Well I can help in someway such as donations if needed but I can't go hunting them because I live in Perth. The community needs to understand the destruction they are causing, they may not react to saying that those pesty, slimy and scary snakes are becoming endangered but they would react if we told hem it could make their lovel little ugly fluffy chihuahua sick or dead.(don't know if a can toad could kill a dog, but hey the media always makes everything out worse than it is) 

Sure an intoxicated bogan with a golf club killing 5 of them won't stop the problem but it will make a difference none the less. 

I find it so painful that we can't set up any traps or baits or snares that wouldn't hurt or capture native animals, I sit there in class and wonder what cold be done about the problem because I think it is the biggest problem in australia besides Julia Gillard

Bohdi.


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## Allan (May 11, 2013)

Because of their enormous capacity to reproduce, killing one, you're basically just making room for another toad who didn't fit in.
Richard Shine gave a talk about the Cane toad problem a few weeks back. Very entertaining, but it ended with "we're losing the war, but there's light at the end of the tunnel"
Basically, we can not eradicate them, they're here to stay. There are some promising results in slowing down their travels and reducing their numbers.


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## Zanks (May 11, 2013)

Anyone care to guess how much the fine is for inhumanely killing a cane toad??
Makes my head spin.


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## gold&black... (May 11, 2013)

.


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## saintanger (May 11, 2013)

Zanks said:


> Anyone care to guess how much the fine is for inhumanely killing a cane toad??
> Makes my head spin.



probably be the same as killing a native animal inhumanely. 

Queensland has a population of 4,560,059 now if everyone killed one cane toad that would make a difference. a few hundred people getting off their rear ends won't make much of a difference but a few million will.

i think the goverment should air a commercial on tv to show the destruction they are causing and the animals who are becoming extinct because of them and how to humanly kill them and maybe people might do something about it.


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## Dendrobates (May 11, 2013)

What about areas that toads exist yet people don't live? How would people be able to kill them or even make a difference then? The most fragile areas that toads do/will affect are the areas that very small populations of humans inhabit (The Kimberley, etc). I was just recently in Western Australia and toads were nearly all the way across to Fitzroy Crossing (if you look on a map that's a long way across the top of WA). They are very thick on the ground from Kununurra down to Halls Creek. 
There are still no species that have become extinct because of Toads in Australia, there is also a huge risk of many frog species (Mixophyes, etc) being slaughtered just because they resemble toads a little bit.


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## saintanger (May 11, 2013)

aspidorhyncha said:


> What about areas that toads exist yet people don't live? How would people be able to kill them or even make a difference then? The most fragile areas that toads do/will affect are the areas that very small populations of humans inhabit (The Kimberley, etc). I was just recently in Western Australia and toads were nearly all the way across to Fitzroy Crossing (if you look on a map that's a long way across the top of WA). They are very thick on the ground from Kununurra down to Halls Creek.
> There are still no species that have become extinct because of Toads in Australia, there is also a huge risk of many frog species (Mixophyes, etc) being slaughtered just because they resemble toads a little bit.



never said there are species that are extinct because of them but who are becoming. areas were toads exist and humans don't, well i am sure we have enough humans in australia who can go out there and kill them.

its seems to me peoples attitudes are we should do nothing and just sit around.


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## Dendrobates (May 11, 2013)

saintanger said:


> never said there are species that are extinct because of them but who are becoming. areas were toads exist and humans don't, well i am sure we have enough humans in australia who can go out there and kill them.
> 
> its seems to me peoples attitudes are we should do nothing and just sit around.



I wasn't referring to your comment, merely stating a fact. Cats will send native species extinct well before toads ever do. You obviously haven't seen these areas where toads exist but humans don't? These areas are pretty much inaccessible due to the landscape and other factors. The toads are using water sources across the top of WA to slowly make their way west, it's amazing to go the Eastern Kimberley one year and see no toads and then go again a second time a year later and the ground is littered with toads! 

That is not the attitude that people have, some people are just realists that look at the bigger picture... you can't just go out and kill all the toads, even killing half the toads will make no difference, it only takes one female to drop another 30,000 babies and the numbers are huge again. There is much more to it then 'the toads are killing everything', more study needs to be done into that.. for example why are Mulga Snakes such a rarity now in the Top End due to toads, but in the Surat Basin Mulgas are in huge numbers but also live right along side cane toads with no ill-effects that we know of?


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## bohdi13 (May 12, 2013)

suggestion; kill'a toad day :lol:

winner gets $1000 haha...

something that has already been said,if 1/4 - 2/4 of australias population (current population roughly 22 million) killed a toad or two there would be a dramatic decline. i tell you what! next time up north i am going toad hunting most nights...


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## mcloughlin2 (May 13, 2013)

I'm not an expert by any means and accept the sad reality that at this stage we can't stop them in their tracks. However I agree on a local level cane toads should be able to be controled. This local area may only be someones 5 acre block of land. It wont stop them completely but clearing a few blocks of land of majority of the toads may reduce the rate of spread until we figure something out. Even if it doesn't work and that theory is bull what's the worse that will happen? A very very small chance a native species is mistakenly identified as a cane toad.

While on a widespread level we have not yet managed to control feral species such as rabbits/foxes/pigs/goats I can name several locations which have seen these animals wiped out (or almost exterminated) due to hunting (in some cases a single hunter on a block of land tens of thousands of acres). Yes cane toads are a different species due to fast reproduction but it can't hurt to kill whatever you can get too.


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