On 19 August that year, toads were released into sites around Gordonvale 4. In less than two months the number of toads had increased at least fold. Further releases of toads in the Cairns and Innisfail areas soon followed. He lobbied the federal government to exercise caution and the Director-General of Health banned any further release of toads in December But this ban was to be short lived. Toads were then released throughout the sugar cane regions of Queensland.
The extremely short timeframe between the toads arriving in Australia and the first release supports this. The beetles that the toads were supposed to control were native Australian species, different to those causing problems in Hawaii and Peurto Rico, yet no trials were carried out to see if this translated to Australian conditions. Risk assessments of potential harms from the introduced species were not done.
It is not surprising that cane toads were imported and released with apparently little-to-no checks or control measures in place. Colonial Australia had a rich history of acclimatisation societies and settlers who introduced foxes, rabbits, deer, blackberries and other species in the s, mainly for food, hunting, or the purpose of making the new country feel more like mother England.
Acclimatisation societies were viewed as scientific organisations and were the precursor to many zoological societies that still exist today.
Quarantine was a state responsibility in the early s and mainly focused on human health, with animal health only coming into focus after the second World War. No serious attempts were made to raise cane toad control as a national issue until the early s. The Commonwealth first took some responsibility for the problem in , with federal funding and establishment of a cane toad Research Management Committee. There is little doubt that those involved believed they were doing the right thing by importing and releasing the cane toad.
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If you have any questions about your donation, please do not hesitate to contact our friendly Supporter Services team either by email: enquiries wwf. Share this page with your friends and family to help endangered animals even more. Our stories News Blogs. Adopt Koala Turtle Tree International species. Adopt Donate. Dry, warty and incredibly toxic. Here are 10 facts: 1. Cane toads are native to South and mainland Central America They were also introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean, and can also be found in Australia.
Cane toads were introduced to Australia in Why were they introduced in the first place? They have no known predators and have had a serious impact on northern Australian ecosystems. Did scientists first test to see if cane toads would help control cane beetles before releasing them? Does this surprise you?
Sugar cane is mostly grown in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. It is used to produce sugar. The First Fleet brought sugar cane to Australia, but it took many decades before successful crops were grown. By the s sugar cane was being grown in far north Queensland. Setting up the sugar cane industry was not easy. Drought often affected crops. But the biggest problem was the larvae of native beetles, which ate the roots of the sugar cane.
These became known as cane beetles. The cane beetle problem became so bad that in the Queensland Government created the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations. Bureau entomologists were given the task of trying to reduce the effect of cane beetles on sugar cane crops.
At first the entomologists experimented with different chemicals to try to control the beetles. But in they decided to try introducing cane toads.
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