Experts advise the public to eliminate invasive cane toads using freezing methods to reduce their population.
Invasive cane toads are spreading rapidly across Australia. (Photo: Bendigo).
Australians are preparing to kill thousands of invasive cane toads as the annual Great Cane Toad Bust event kicks off. Experts urge participants in the competition to humanely euthanize the amphibians using freezing methods. The event, organized by the environmental group Watergum, began on January 13 and lasts for one week. People across Australia are encouraged to catch and kill as many adult toads, tadpoles, and young toads as possible. The initiative aims to reduce the population of cane toads that have plagued Australia for decades, according to Newsweek.
Cane toads are an invasive and voracious species in Australia, first introduced nearly 100 years ago. Since then, they have spread across the country, threatening many native animals. According to Rick Shine, an evolutionary biology professor and cane toad expert at Macquarie University in Sydney, they are large toads that were brought to Australia in 1935 to control harmful beetles affecting sugar cane crops. This species has proven ineffective in controlling the beetles but has proliferated throughout tropical regions. They possess potent toxins to deter predators, which can result in widespread fatalities among large native predators such as quolls, crocodiles, snakes, and lizards. Predators in Australia have not evolved mechanisms to cope with the toxins of cane toads.
Currently, there are about 200 million cane toads across Australia. They can reproduce rapidly, with a female toad capable of laying up to 70,000 tadpoles each year and living up to 15 years, according to invasive species expert Nikki Tomsett from Watergum. Tomsett advises participants in the Great Cane Toad Bust event to euthanize the toads they capture by freezing them, as this method is the least painful for the animals. In previous years, people have killed cane toads by hitting them with golf clubs or baseball bats, and even running them over with cars.
The freezing method involves placing the toad in a refrigerator for 24 hours to render it unconscious, then transferring it to the freezer to kill it painlessly. A 2015 study published in the journal Biology Open found no signs of pain in the brains of toads undergoing this process. Approximately 50,000 toads were killed in just one week during previous Great Cane Toad Bust events. According to Shine, this elimination is only effective in the short term. To truly reduce the number of toads, their breeding must be prevented. So far, tadpole traps have proven to be the most effective solution.
