THE aphorism ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ rings true if you look backwards towards 1935 when cane toads were introduced to Australia to control agricultural pests.
Unfortunately, the amphibians were useless at this task but competent in others like breeding and adapting to the Australian climate.
Boonah and District Landcare president Linda Kimber said her organisation had a new tool when it came to curbing the toad numbers that when deployed, would result in billions being destroyed.
She even went as far to say it would probably make the ‘biggest dent in the cane toad population thus far’.
“The University of Queensland have developed cane toad tadpole traps using a grant from Scenic Rim Council,” Ms Kimber said.
“The bait or lure is made from the toxins in the cane toad’s parotoid gland and this is placed inside a plastic trap that looks a bit like a bucket on its side.
“The idea is the traps are partially submerged in places where cane toads breed and they are attracted to the lure.
“This way you catch thousands in one hit and that’s getting them right at the start of their breeding cycle.”
She said the local Landcare had 35 of these traps available for the public to use and this was offered free of charge.
The only cost is that of the bait which costs $5.
“You only need to put it in your dam once and it will catch all cane toad tadpoles that are in it,” she said.“You don’t have to keep going back night after night ... it’s a very quick process.”
The trap is a major win for native species preyed on or poisoned by eating cane toads.
It is still important people remained diligent in removing adult cane toads because each female is capable of laying up to 70,000 eggs.
“Every time you get rid of a female cane toad you are potentially removing, over her lifespan, about a million cane toads,” she said.
Ms Kimber explained that the baits worked by tapping into the cane toad’s carnivorous and cannibalistic tendencies.
“They are drawn to the bait, seeing it as a threat and go into the bucket to get hold of it,” she said.
“The most important thing here is that it does not attract frog tadpoles, only cane toad tadpoles.
“You can be really confident that when you pull your trap out of the water that you are only getting cane toad tadpoles.”
The new traps had ‘been in the making for some time’ and Boonah
Landcare were only able to access them earlier this year.
While the traps are a little too early in the breeding season to be deployed now, Ms Kimber is hopeful that when the time is right, residents will use them and cane toad populations will start to decline.
“It will not take very long to make a dent in their populations and we’ve seen this happen in the past when encouraging disposal of adult cane toads,” she said.
“This is why we try to get the community involved.”
Ms Kimber said people could borrow the bucket traps from Boonah Landcare to catch cane toad tadpoles towards the end of the year when the weather warmed up.