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Within a year, the Australian government, fearing it had blooped, ordered a ban on further toad releases. But, under pressure from sugar farmers who were losing money, the government reversed the ban a few months later.<\/p>\n
The genie was out of the lamp. Cane toads evolved in Central and South America, dodging caimans, birds, snakes and fish that love to eat them despite the toxic goo they produce at will from pouches on their backs. But in Australia, nothing eats the toads. Worse, the ones that try often succumb to the goo.<\/p>\n
Lucky toads. Today, there are 200 mil-among the most virulent invasive species the world has ever seen. They\u2019ve long since hopped thousands of kilometres past that initial lagoon in Queensland and into the northern stretches of the contin-ent, eating everything they can put in their gaping maws, dead or alive, cane beetles excepted.<\/p>\n
Over time, they could invade the whole top third or so of Australia, stretching like a giant toque from one side of the vast island to the other, laying waste to native species as they go. The lizard called the Mitchell\u2019s water monitor, for example, is now critically endangered thanks to cane toad poison, with population drops of 97 per cent in some areas.<\/p>\n
Locals are fighting back with character-istic Aussie brio. They\u2019ve devised cane toad golf and cricket, substituting the amphibian for the ball. They race toads, betting on the winner. Some towns have instituted toad-busting Tuesdays, when residents and holiday-makers alike catch as many of the beasts as they can for future annihilation.<\/p>\n
The sport of killing toads is so wide-spread that the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals has weighed in with a guide on how to dispatch the critters. Hint: it does not involve a wooden club. Decapitation, done swiftly, is acceptable.<\/p>\n
Commercial solutions are also being developed including a chemical agent called Croaked. Users are directed to wear thick gloves when spraying it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all to no avail.<\/p>\n
“Cane toads are getting ever more efficient at coloniz-ing Australia. Those early generations that sprang from the original toad couples 87 years ago had the capacity to spread by about 10 kilometres a year. Today, the rate is 60 kilometres a year.<\/p>\n
Not only that, but individuals on the invasion fronts have figured out how to move as far as 1.8 kilometres a night and\u2014here\u2019s a spooky fact\u2014in ever straighter lines.<\/p>\n
Australian cane toads have become so voracious that they\u2019ve now evolved to eat their own, becoming, as one biologist put it, their own worst enemy. Cannibalistic tadpoles have begun hoovering up their younger hatchling kin\u2014not only for sustenance but also as a canny strategy to eliminate competitors for other sources of food. This is Charles Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution unfolding in front of our eyes.<\/p>\n
This tale of the toad carries lessons for us all. The first is that it\u2019s a mistake to bow to pressure from people whose main concern is short-term profit. (Queensland still has a sugar-cane industry, toad fail notwithstanding.) Our task as a society is to balance the wants of one group against the imperatives of the system that sustains us all. Think carbon.<\/p>\n
The second is that evolution keeps going. I think sometimes we haughtily imagine that Darwin\u2019s 1859 book On the Origin of Species<\/em> was describing a system of adaptation that hit an endpoint\u2014or even an apex\u2014with Homo sapiens.<\/p>\n Not so. Evolution is the driving force of life on our planet. As conditions change, species do too. And today, the carbon we are emitting into the atmosphere and ocean is changing conditions faster than at any other time in the planet\u2019s history.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reprinted from <\/em>Canadian Wildlife magazine. Get more information or subscribe now<\/a>! Now on newsstands! Or, get your digital edition today<\/a>!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cwf-fcf.org\/assets\/images\/magazine-current-issue\/cw-canadian-wildlife-current-issue-magazine-cover.png\")
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