Toad Media
MEDIA
14 August 2006
7:30 Report - WA watching cane toad advance
Reporter: Hamish Fitzsimmons
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1714848.htm
Broadcast: 14/08/2006
KERRY O'BRIEN: The cane toad is an unpalatable
fact of life in Queensland, the Northern Territory and even NSW,
and now, even Western Australia is watching its presence near the
Territory border with no little dread. The advance of the toads
towards WA has prompted the State Government to launch a public
awareness campaign, combined with detection programs to keep cane
toads out. In a novel approach, one Perth woman is training pure-bred
dingoes to act as sniffer dogs. Hamish Fitzsimmons reports.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The untamed beauty of the
Kimberley is one of Western Australia's major attractions, but its
unspoilt waterways and fragile fauna are facing an unwelcome visitor
- the cane toad. Toads have been found less than 70km away in the
Northern Territory and moving west. A campaign to stop the toad's
advance is in full swing, and those involved say it could disrupt
the ecological balance in WA's north.
DENNIS BEROS, STOP THE TOAD FOUNDATION: People
have made up their mind that they don't want this invasive species.
Perhaps we don't need to have this invasive species, and doing everything
that we can to keep it out now is a far better thing than counting
the cost at some later time.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: This is one of the hopeful
new recruits in the West's attempt to keep the toads at bay. Kimber,
a month-old dingo pup, is about to begin its training as a sniffer
dog to detect toads.
SARAH FYFFE, DOG TRAINER: The purebred species
is under threat. There's not a lot of hope for them if people don't
step in, and I just want to change people's opinions, so that when
they hear the word 'dingo' they don't think Azaria, they don't think
vicious attacks, they think it's a wonderful animal and a treasure
to our country. Good girl, well done. I'm actually now teaching
her to step back from the toad when she finds it, rather than sit
right next to it, just for her safety as well.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Sarah Fyffe is a professional
dog trainer who sees the potential to use purebred dingoes to sniff
out cane toads and, in the process, rehabilitate the image of an
animal once regarded as a pest.
SARAH FYFFE: Good baby! You're a good girl!
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: So far three dingoes, including
this 3-month-old, have been taught to sniff out cane toads which
Sarah Fyffe imports frozen from Queensland. She says purebred dingoes
have an edge over domestic breeds traditionally used in Customs
work.
SARAH FYFFE: As humans, we haven't altered them,
so all of their senses are still really alert and really, really
powerful. With, say, the beagle, over the years we've refined them
so their sense of smell is heightened. So, in effect, their hearing
and their sight has lowered. With a dingo, all of those senses are
completely awake and finetuned.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Training the dingoes hasn't
come without its problems. Aside from raising two small children,
Sarah Fyffe has also worn the cost of importing the toads into WA
and then there's dealing with the dingo's unique personality.
SARAH FYFFE: They're very, very soft. A lot of
people think they're a hard dog, but they're not. They are very,
very soft-hearted and their spirits are broken very easily.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The dingo project hasn't received
backing from the State Government, which is spending millions to
try to stop the march of the toad. But once the dingoes are trialled
in the Kimberley and in the NT in the coming months, the results
will be scrutinised.
DR WINSTON KAY, WA DEPT OF ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION:
At this stage, it's quite a new idea, I guess, to train a wild species
like a dingo for this sort of role, so we'll just wait to see how
successful, I guess, that training program is and we're not even
sure at this stage whether or not a detection dog can be trained
effectively to detect a single species like a cane toad.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: But it will take more than
dingoes or sniffer dogs to keep the toads at bay. Dr Winston Kay
is in charge of the State's cane toad initiative.
DR WINSTON KAY: We do recognise that it is a long
shot. Cane toads are a very successful invasive species that have
been in Australia for a long time. We're just doing the best we
can to try and slow or prevent their entry into Western Australia.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The westward movement of toads
in the last wet season alarmed those preparing WA's response.
DR WINSTON KAY: There was limited surveillance
done prior to the onset of this most recent wet season, but based
on known populations, we estimate they've moved at least 90km further
west over the course of the wet season, which is a quite a rapid
movement for an animal of that size.
ADVERTISEMENT: WA is facing an alien invasion.
This quiet creature, alien to Australia - the cane toad.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The State Government has pushed
a public awareness campaign to alert people to the threat. It has
also created the Stop the Toad Foundation which says preventing
the toad's entry into WA is of national importance.
DENNIS BEROS: Really, the Kimberley is the only
part of northern Australia now not infested with cane toads, so
there's both an enormous threat there and a great opportunity, too.
It would be great to keep it that way if we can and that's what
we're all about - having a go to try and keep them away.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: For her part, Sarah Fyffe
is keen to put her dingoes to work as soon as possible to try and
stop the march of the cane toad into the Kimberley.
SARAH FYFFE: In my situation, I'm no scientist,
I can't come up with a biological control, but I can train these
guys to help hold back that front line and if they're worth five
or six people out in the fields where the toads are, to find them
and put a stop to them, then that's helping out in my way.
Original: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1714848.htm
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