Caribbean cane toad problems

This video says about itself:

A huge cane toad weighing nearly a kilogram has been found in Darwin in northern Australia.

From BBC News 27/03/07.

From the BBC:

Cane toad threat spreads beyond Australia to Caribbean

By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

Cane toads, one of the world’s most destructive invasive species, have started killing native wildlife outside of Australia.

Cane toads are poisonous, secreting a toxin that kills predators not adapted to eat them, and as a result the toads have caused a decline in native Australian reptiles and marsupials.

Now scientists have discovered that the toads are also killing boa snakes in the West Indies, suggesting that other predators in the Caribbean and elsewhere may also be at risk.

The cane toad is a large toad species, which secretes a powerful bufogenin toxin.

Its native range extends from northern South America through Central America and into the southern United States.

In the early to mid 19th Century, the toad was intentionally introduced to islands in the Caribbean, including Jamaica in 1844, and then through the South Pacific.

The toad was introduced to eat and control pests of sugar cane, including rats and beetles.

However, the toad has had a destructive impact in many places where it has spread, out-competing native species.

More recently, the toad has devastated populations of amphibian predators, including large lizards, snakes and marsupials, in Australia.

The threat there continues to grow as the toads spread west across the country from Queensland into New South Wales and the Northern Territory.

Cane toads are so prevalent in Australia that people in the Australian state of Queensland have even taken part in a mass capture of the poisonous amphibians, as part of a collective effort at pest control.

Threat widens

Now scientists have documented the cane toad killing rare native fauna in the Carribean.

Dr Byron Wilson, at the University of West Indies in Jamaica, and his colleagues there and in the US have found numerous examples of cane toads poisoning Jamaican boas (Epicrates subflavus), large predatory snakes that are endemic to the island of Jamaica.

The boa, also known as the yellow snake, is Jamaica’s top native terrestrial predator.

Already rare, the snake is threatened by habitat destruction and introduced dogs and pigs.

“To our knowledge, this is the first report of cane toads causing mortality in naturally occurring predators outside of Australia,” say the authors in the journal Biological Invasions.

“Although cane toads have been present on Jamaica for more than 160 years, it is clear from our observations that Jamaican boas have not yet learnt to avoid this toxic prey species.”

The researchers now fear that the toads could pose a threat to the snake across its island range.

They also worry that other species in Jamaica and on other Caribbean islands are at risk from bufotoxin poisoning.

“Cane toad hitches ride into WA – Sydney Morning Herald“: here.

July 2010: Western Australia’s Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) is reminding people to remain vigilant following the discovery of a live cane toad inside a shed in Broome’s light industrial area. The cane toad was handed in this morning by a member of the public who captured the toad and alerted DEC officers in Broome: here.

IT COULD be one of the world’s most unfairly maligned creatures. Despite its invasion of Australia, the cane toad has not triggered the overwhelming ecological disaster that some predicted: here.

Cane toad takes over Australia — and then doesn’t – Mother Nature Network: here.

Cane toads killing off reptile predators – ABC Online: here.

Cane toad campaign turns attention to Australian reptiles – ABC Local: here.

Evolutionarily accelerated invasions: the rate of dispersal evolves upwards during the range advance of cane toads: here.

Cane toad tadpoles exposed as slavering cannibals: here.

Dr Mike Letnic, from the University of Western Sydney and colleagues, write in the international journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, that restricting cane toads’ access to surface water could halt their spread deeper into the Australian outback: here.

Speed and the mating habits of the Australian cane toad are set to expand the theory of evolution according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA: here.

Skin Fight: Could Bacteria Carried by Amphibians Save Them from Extinction? Here.