Toad Media

ABC News Online

Original Source

Monday, October 23, 2006. 10:22am (AEST)

WA toad fighters urge Govt to rethink strategy

A group set up to fight the spread of the cane toad into Western Australia has called on the Government to review its approach to handling the threat.

The comments, from the Stop the Toad Foundation, follow the release of a report by the Department of Environment and Conservation that says it is unlikely the pests will be prevented from crossing the WA border.

The report predicts the toads could reach the border within the next one to three years.

Volunteers have trapped 36,000 of the pests in the Northern Territory in the past month.

The foundation's regional coordinator, Graeme Sawyer, says the WA Government's approach to the issue has so far been disappointing.

"We need to be much more strategic than what we have been," he said.

"I mean we've spent a lot of effort collectively in places that were irrelevant to stopping cane toad movement towards Western Australia.

"We were being told by a number of people that the front line of cane toads was back the other side of Timber Creek, when in reality it's been quite a bit further west."

Mr Sawyer says the State Government has not done enough to tackle the issue.

"We obviously haven't been doing a very good job to date of working out where cane toads are, because nobody was expecting us to find 36,000, 40,000 cane toads out on the Auvergne flood plains," he said.

"So there's a whole range of issues in there and I guess that's one of the issues I'd have with the Government releasing a report like that, talking about what's going to happen when they really haven't even tried half of the things that they were talking about originally."

The WA Government says it is seeking a biological solution to the pest and is putting $350,000 towards a new research project.

Environment Minister Mark McGowan says he has also written to his federal counterpart, Ian Campbell, to ask the Commonwealth to contribute funds towards the research.

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