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Cane Toads (Australia)

Croc pop about to explode due to cane toads...

Cane toad impact will boost croc hatchling numbers, researchers say

Researchers say there is about to be an explosion in the number of crocodiles entering a key Northern Territory river because cane toads have wiped out the goannas that would normally eat the crocodiles' eggs.

Researchers from Wildlife Management International have been studying a stretch of the McKinlay River for 20 years.

Chief scientist Charlie Manolis says goannas would normally eat 90 per cent of the area's crocodile eggs, but this year that figure has dropped to 10 per cent.

"The cane toads have just taken all the goannas out there. [It's] very rare that you can find a live goanna walking around here now," he said.

Mr Manolis says the same scene is probably being repeated in rivers across the Territory.

But he says it is unlikely there will be a crocodile plague, because predators will move in to feast on the hatchlings.

"The more hatchlings you have, the higher the mortality on the hatchlings," he said.

"Because there's fish, there's turtles, there's other crocodiles. There's a whole bunch of other predators who are more likely to kill the hatchlings if they are there in numbers than if they are there in low numbers."

The full impact will not be known until after the eggs finish incubating in March.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1742950.htm


Crikey! RIP The Crocs and the Cane toads will be fighting it out on the streets of Melbourne soon!
 
Re: Croc pop about to explode due to cane toads...

sunsplash1 said:
Crikey! RIP The Crocs and the Cane toads will be fighting it out on the streets of Melbourne soon!

10 quid on the Crocs to win :lol:
 
new form of accidental iquid explosive

Toad juice' buyers warned of explosion risk

The makers of a liquid fertiliser made from pulverised cane toads have issued a warning that the "toad juice" bottles could explode.

Northern Territory FrogWatch sold 300 bottles at Darwin's recent Garden Spectacular but says the liquid in the batch is still fermenting.

It has asked customers who have not used their bottle to move the cap half a turn to ease the pressure or risk getting showered by an evil-smelling sticky liquid.

Graeme Sawyer, from FrogWatch, says the liquid is no longer poisonous.

"There's no toxin left in it by the time it's been through the fertiliser process," he said.

"It's an inert substance in that sense, so there's no problem there.

"The issue just is that because it was such a fresh batch, it's still producing gas.

"If you've got it in the bottle and the lid's sealed tightly, it builds up pressure in the bottle."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1743791.htm
 
NT sets up cane toad departure lounges

FrogWatch has escalated the battle against the cane toad in the Northern Territory, with a collection bin set up in Darwin today where residents can take the pests for humane disposal.

The organisation says the Australian military is also joining the fight and will use the bins and traps on its Northern Territory bases.

FrogWatch's Graeme Sawyer says the collection bin at Shoal Bay tip is the first of its kind in Darwin city.

He says the toads are treated well before disposal.

"The detention centres are set up as a comfort zone for toads," he said.

"They've got insulated walls, water system in it, they've got a light so they can attract insects at night to feed the toads that are in it, and then we come and clear that detention centre once a week.

"The toads get taken from there and get gassed with carbon dioxide and then they get stock-piled in a freezer.

"When we've got a batch we put them through the fertiliser plant at Maloko and turn 'em into toad juice."

Last Update: Friday, January 12, 2007.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1826071.htm

Just as well...
 
Isnt it wonderful to know there are places that ACTUALLY deal with vermin????
 
Interesting development in Australia's war on species specific terrorism...

Cane toads have been doing pretty well in some of the Northern Territory's remote areas, but at a tiny outstation about 500 kilometres east of Darwin, people have started to see them falling out of the sky.

John Greatorex has been visiting the Mapura outstation for years, but has only recently discovered that the cane toads have found themselves a predator.

He says he was quietly have a cup of tea last week when things became a little strange.

"We were sitting down just having breakfast by the fire and there was this 'plok' just beside us," he said.

"I looked down and it was a cane toad and I thought, 'hey, how come a cane toad's falling out of a tree?' I thought 'no, it couldn't be', and I looked up and saw a crow."

Mr Greatorex says a few minutes later, it happened again.

"Plok! Another one landed and I looked up and there was another crow up there," he said.

"It flew down and picked up the cane toad and off it flew too, up into the tree and it grabbed the cane toad and turned it over up on the bough of this tree and started eating its insides."

Queensland crows have been reported eating cane toads, but there has been less evidence of it in the NT.

Mr Greatorex says he was not entirely convinced, so he went out that night, caught a toad and released it when the crows were around the next day.

"One of them turned its head and it walked over to this cane toad and grabbed it by its leg and turned it over," he said.

"After it had got good hold of the leg off it flew up into a tree and started eating it."

Roslyn Malnumba spends most of her days weaving baskets at Mapuru, and has also seen the crows eating toads.

She says she is thrilled about the discovery.

"I'm happy, because the cane toads [are] hopping in our places. I don't like those cane toads," she said.

At Alice Springs Desert Park, native bird trainer Gareth Cat says once a group of crows have learnt how to eat the toads, the knowledge should spread.

"Crows show remarkable cognitive abilities, a lot of research believes them to have higher cognitive abilities than a lot of apes," he said.

"They can think about what they're doing and even in certain cases show imagination, which is a pretty hard thing to try to comprehend."

Article at http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/15/2033759.htm
 
Cane toad found in Adelaide

An adult female cane toad has been found in Adelaide's inner northern suburbs.

The State Government says a Mawson Lakes resident trapped the toxic pest in a backyard and reported it immediately to authorities.

It is believed the toad may have hitched a lift south to Adelaide aboard a truck or train.

An intensive surveillance and trapping operation will be carried out around Mawson Lakes during the next few nights in an attempt to flush out any more toads.

Residents are being asked to capture alive any cane toads they find, and report the finding.

Biologist Ron Sinclair says gloves should be used when handling toads.

"If they're gripped hard or really frightened or stressed then they will start to ooze material out of this gland, and in some cases they have the capacity to actually squirt it a short distance so they can be dangerous," he said.

The introduced cane toads are blamed for wreaking havoc on native fauna across northern Australia.

Linkhttp://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/14/2163186.htm
Pity I don't live near posh mawson lakes, shotgun, golf club and wheels at the ready!
 
Composted cane toads to feed sugar cane


Potential compost: the company says it will kill the amphibians humanely.


Cane toads will be turned into compost for sugar cane farmers by a Queensland waste management company.

The company is asking Cairns residents to capture the pests and bring them to its 'toad day out' this weekend.

Plant manager Haydn Slattery says the company is hoping to collect about 100 kilograms of toads, which will be humanely killed in preparation to be used as the raw materials for compost.

"Over a three-day period we'll take the material into the plant, it'll break down microbially into compost, and in four weeks time after that, it'll end up in cane farms," he said.

"Finally after 80-odd years of cane toads being around after being introduced as something that's going to be of use to cane farmers, 80 years down the track they're being turned into compost and finally becoming a benefit to our farmers."

Cane toads were introduced into north Queensland in 1935 to control pest beetles, and quickly spread along vast tracts of Queensland coastline.

The cane toads did little to control the beetles, and have become a widespread pest themselves in Queensland, northern New South Wales the Northern Territory and small parts of Western Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/26/2526514.htm


Aah the justice off poets... We have being doing something similar with our water borne pests for years.
 
This is not quite cryptozoology, so I posted it here. Cane toads escaping floods (because they're amphibians, right?) chose to ride on the back of a python (which eats toads, right?). It's only a brief film, but there are some photos too.

Or perhaps they're frogs that are being impounded for illegal parking? Park here and you will be toad...


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-46720029
 
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Bloody freeloaders...https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-31/cane-toads-hitch-ride-on-monty-the-python-back/10675944?smid=Page: ABC News-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic&sf205159638=1

Video no longer available at the posted link. Here's a photo of the incident from the linked article ...

Dvr5BP_VAAE2g46.jpeg
 
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This is not quite cryptozoology, so I posted it here. Can toads escaping floods (because they're amphibians, right?) chose to ride on the back of a python (which eats toads, right?). It's only a brief film, but there are some photos too.
Or perhaps they're frogs that are being impounded for illegal parking? Park here and you will be toad...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-46720029

I don't think anything eats cane toads, they're pretty poisonous. Bufotoxin.
 
I don't think anything eats cane toads, they're pretty poisonous. Bufotoxin.
Many species prey on the cane toad and its tadpoles in its native habitat, including the broad-snouted caiman (Caiman latirostris), the banded cat-eyed snake (Leptodeira annulata), eels (family Anguillidae), various species of killifish, the rock flagtail (Kuhlia rupestris), some species of catfish (order Siluriformes), some species of ibis (subfamily Threskiornithinae), and Paraponera clavata (bullet ants). Predators outside the cane toad's native range include the whistling kite (Haliastur sphenurus), the rakali (Hydromys chrysogaster), the black rat (Rattus rattus) and the water monitor (Varanus salvator). The tawny frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) and the Papuan frogmouth (Podargus papuensis) have been reported as feeding on cane toads; some Australian crows (Corvus spp.) have also learned strategies allowing them to feed on cane toads, such as using their beak to flip toads onto their back. Opossums of the genus Didelphis likely can eat cane toads with impunity. Meat ants are unaffected by the cane toads' toxins, and therefore are able to kill them. The cane toad's normal response to attack is to stand still and let its toxin kill the attacker, which allows the ants to attack and eat the toad.
 

Fair enough. I stand corrected. I can get things eating the tadpoles, but the actual toads. They must be desperate.
 
I've heard at least one person claim they weren't just getting a "piggy-back ride" from the snake.

Personally, having grown up in Brisbane in the 70s, I'd rather they'd all drowned. But then, they're toads, so it's not terribly likely, is it?


I can accept leaches, fleas, flies, ticks and mosquitoes in the grand scheme of things Anome, but cane toads leave me scratching my head...and they'll attempt to root with anything!

Horrid little buggers.
 
They're an invasive species and eat anything smaller than their head, including small endangered marsupials. And nothing can eat them, because of the toxins they excrete.

Kids I knew at school would go round with golf clubs (usually with the heads removed) and play "Cane Toad Golf". They'd charge residents 50c per toad to kill them, $1 to remove the corpse afterwards. (Oddly enough, no-one usually agreed to pay them.)
 
According to comment from 'a cane toad expert', they're actually trying to mate with it. A toad would seem to be capable of dealing with flood conditions on it's own without any snake assistance. It seems they're randy little buggers at certain times of the year & will try to shag anything which looks likely.

It's also reported that some predators are learning not to eat them - in one area Goanna which had virtually vanished are making a comeback..
 
they're actually trying to mate with it.

This kind of behaviour is not limited to the cane toad. A relative once witnessed a dying fish on the mud of her shrinking pond; several toads found its death spasms very stimulating and were mating with it. Serially or simultaneously, I cannot say; I suppose that would be governed only by the size of the fish. Explaining this scene to her daughter, who had found it, was a challenge. I think she opted for the notion that the toads were trying to help the fish back into the water! :tmnt:
 
It seems they're randy little buggers at certain times of the year & will try to shag anything which looks likely.

Making the beast with half a dozen backs.
 
Now they're eating each other.

The species' relentless invasion of the continent has taken a turn toward cannibalism.

Free from the predators and parasites in its native range, the toad's poison glands have turned out to be a hazard for most species that try to eat it where it has been introduced.

But that doesn't mean that it's completely free of the risk of predation. Australian cane toad tadpoles have been observed feeding on their fellow cane toad offspring. This cannibalism seems to be an evolutionary response to the lack of competing species in its invasive range, causing cane toads to turn on their remaining competition: each other. And the toad has already turned to an additional evolutionary response to try to limit the danger of cannibalism.

From an evolutionary perspective, cannibalism can make sense as a way to limit the competition posed by other members of your species. But the research team at the University of Sydney that has tracked the cane toad's cannibalism suggests that the species' successful invasion of Australia has accentuated this evolutionary pressure—something that may also occur with other invasive predators. One of the marks of an invasive species is its abundance in its new range, at which point competition for limited resources becomes more likely. Cannibalism not only limits this competition but provides nutritional resources as well. ...

https://www.wired.com/story/nothing-can-eat-australias-cane-toads-they-eat-each-other/
 
There's a horror film just waiting to be made about this guy!

A cane toad so giant wildlife officers thought it was fake has been found in a north Australian rainforest.

The "monster" specimen is six times bigger than the average toad, weighs 2.7kg, and could break a world record. Dubbed "Toadzilla", the animal was quickly placed in a container and removed from the wild.

Toads - which were first introduced to Australia in 1935 - are one of the country's most damaging pests and are now estimated to number in the hundreds of millions.

When park ranger Kylee Gray first spotted the massive amphibian while out on patrol in Queensland, she couldn't believe her eyes.

"I've never seen anything so big," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. [It looked] almost like a football with legs. We dubbed it Toadzilla."

Her team quickly captured Toadzilla - believed to be a female - and returned to base to weigh her. They knew she would be heavy, but were surprised to find she could set a new world record.

The current Guinness World Record for the largest toad - 2.65kg - was set by a pet toad in Sweden named Prinsen in 1991.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-64341453
 
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