Toad Media

MEDIA RELEASE

19 March 2006

Cane toad front thins out

ABC news

NT Frogwatch says the Toadbusters campaign has managed to thin-out the cane toad front as it approaches Darwin.

Last night, cane toad hunters went in search of the pest at Darwin's Botanical Gardens and in Palmerston, Howard Springs and Rapid Creek.

Graeme Sawyer from Frogwatch says the toads' progress has been hampered by all the hunting and trapping carried out in the rural areas.

"The toad front is not really recognisable at the moment," he said.

"We can sort of identify where it is but it's in much, much smaller numbers than when we saw it out in the bush and I'm sure that reason is because of all of the thousands of toads that have been killed by all the Humpty Doo people, Palmerston, Howard Springs, it's thinned it right out."

Frogwatch also says the yellow spotted goanna is rapidly disappearing from the Top End, killed off by the arrival of the cane toad.

Mr Sawyer says goannas have been under threat from the moment cane toads reached Kakadu National Park.

But he says the most recent research work has shown the large goanna species is dying off.

Mr Sawyer says a recent survey of the Manton Dam area has seen an alarming decline and he would be surprised if Kakadu is not just as bad.

"Last survey they did which I think was 16 visits over a four week period or something, they counted 50 sightings of goannas and they just redid that survey and counted two, so that's a fairly big change in a few months," he said.

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