Toad Media

MEDIA RELEASE

14 February 2007

TOAD MUSTER GETS STRIKING RESULTS

After its remarkable success in attacking the advance of toxic cane toads into WA from the Northern Territory, the Stop The Toad Foundation is planning its second dry season onslaught.

In the first Great Toad Muster last September-October the foundation, aided by 126 volunteers, cleared a buffer zone 100km east of the WA border by killing 48,374 advancing cane toads. Many were adult females, capable of laying 30,000 eggs in one season.

The remarkable operation, the first known attempt to remove cane toads from an area at landscape scale, was made possible because of a $500,000 grant by the WA Government, plus contributions from other organisations and individuals.

STTF Chairman Robert Edel said it was crucial that the achievements of last year's muster should be consolidated by another major effort this year, at the end of the Kimberley dry season.

"The evidence gathered since the muster suggests that the operation has been highly effective.

"Since the muster the Department of Environment and Conservation has returned three times to the buffer zone around Auvergne Lagoon with the cane toad sniffer dog Nifty without finding any evidence of cane toads in the area," said Mr Edel.

"We have shown that a concerted effort at the end of the dry season, when cane toads are at their lowest ebb, can have a significant effect in halting their colonisation.

"The toads cannot survive for more than four days without water. To survive at the end of the dry season they have to cluster around the few remaining water holes.

"By returning night after night to the same water holes we succeeded in wiping out virtually all the cane toads in that area.

"At this stage we cannot estimate how successful the toads have been in moving westward during this summer's wet season.

"To consolidate the work already done it is essential that we get further funding to return to the buffer zone at the end of the dry season this year. We are hoping that the State Government will continue to support the activity of the Foundation and that the Commonwealth Government will also contribute to this vital volunteer effort.

"Cane toads are deadly to Australia's native fauna. The only permanent way of eliminating them is by some sort of biological control. Meantime we have to keep up our efforts to keep them out of Western Australia."

For comment:

Robert Edel (STTF Chair): 0417 927 830
Graeme Sawyer (STTF Regional Coordinator): 0411 881 378
Dennis Beros (STTF Campaign Manager): 0409 244 029