Thursday, February 18, 2010

Cat Food solution to Cane Toads!

I listened to a delightful interview on the radio just now, about an environmentally sound control for cane toads. Sadly I didn't get the details of the person being interviewed, but Google came to the rescue, using the unlikely key word phrase above. And it turns out to be a Sydney scientist who is proposing the solution! Professor Rick Shine of University of Sydney says the technique has been tried up North and seems to work.
They have been putting scoops of tinned cat food by pools where cane toad tadpoles are maturing into baby frogs. Any local meat-eating ants swarm, and after finishing off the cat food they then eat the baby frogs! Nature at its very best! 80% of young cane toads encountering those native australian meat ants were killed.


That has to be better than relying on the niche Japanese market, who apparently use bufotenine (the active ingredient of cane toad poison) as an aphrodisiac and a hair restorer. An aphrodisiac? Kiss the cane toad???

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