Sunday, November 21, 2004
Ground 'Moves' as Cane Toads Invade Park
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of poisonous baby cane toads invaded an Australian national park Friday, hopping around in such numbers that the ground seemed to move, an ecologist said.
The ugly amphibians moved into the Arakwal National Park near one of the country's famous surfing meccas, Byron Bay, following an explosion in toad numbers after recent rains.
"You should see the ground down there, it is just black and it is just moving, it is a seething mass of young cane toads, it looks like the ground is moving," local ecologist Steve Phillips told Australian radio.
Park officials plan to destroy as many of the toads as possible before they grow into adults, hoping that once numbers are reduced the threatened wallum froglet and wallum sedge frog populations will pick up.
Cane toads are one of Australia's worst environmental pests.
They were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935 to stop the French Cane Beetle and Greyback Cane Beetle from destroying sugar cane crops in the northeastern state of Queensland.
The biological warfare experiment backfired as the beetles could fly and escape being killed.
The toads thrived, meanwhile, and quickly multiplied.
With females laying up to 35,000 eggs a year, the amphibians -- some as big as dinner plates -- have now spread out from Queensland west into the Northern Territory and south into New South Wales, threatening the unique Australian fauna in their path.
While cane toads will eat anything and appear easy prey for larger animals, they possess highly poisonous sacs behind their heads which kill predators quickly.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of poisonous baby cane toads invaded an Australian national park Friday, hopping around in such numbers that the ground seemed to move, an ecologist said.
The ugly amphibians moved into the Arakwal National Park near one of the country's famous surfing meccas, Byron Bay, following an explosion in toad numbers after recent rains.
"You should see the ground down there, it is just black and it is just moving, it is a seething mass of young cane toads, it looks like the ground is moving," local ecologist Steve Phillips told Australian radio.
Park officials plan to destroy as many of the toads as possible before they grow into adults, hoping that once numbers are reduced the threatened wallum froglet and wallum sedge frog populations will pick up.
Cane toads are one of Australia's worst environmental pests.
They were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935 to stop the French Cane Beetle and Greyback Cane Beetle from destroying sugar cane crops in the northeastern state of Queensland.
The biological warfare experiment backfired as the beetles could fly and escape being killed.
The toads thrived, meanwhile, and quickly multiplied.
With females laying up to 35,000 eggs a year, the amphibians -- some as big as dinner plates -- have now spread out from Queensland west into the Northern Territory and south into New South Wales, threatening the unique Australian fauna in their path.
While cane toads will eat anything and appear easy prey for larger animals, they possess highly poisonous sacs behind their heads which kill predators quickly.
