Original subtitles

one male one female and down is more

than sufficient to populate the entire

top into the mortal territory

the best thing is to get a little get a

big stick and hit a method practice of

going out and getting one of these

things and putting them into a billy

boiling it down and eating the residue I

think is absolutely repulsive when I'm

driving a car I have no hesitation of

running over them whatsoever I couldn't

do without them

their friends

Oh

I can recall quite vividly seeing cane

grubs early in the morning the beetle

his flight early in the morning and land

on the cane the cane was weighted down

with beetles trees surrounding the cane

farms weighted down with beetles

sometimes farmers would cut around about

800 ton to a thousand ton and the

following year wouldn't cut a ton at all

highly the situation really became

desperate in the early 1930s due to the

combined effect of grub attack and the

effect of the depression on the world

price of sugar so something had to be

done to control of the grub if at all

possible and of course the farmers never

let up on their demands on the sugar

Experiment Station start to do something

about it

well in 1932 there was a World

Conference of sugar technologists held

in Puerto Rico and we were represented

at that conference by the assistant

director of the sugar experiment

stations mr. Arthur Bell

I believe this evidence shows that the

bull marinus or cane toad can be

effectively used as a biological control

of the gray bag grub and people and I

strongly advocate the effective use of

this amphibian immigrant which is doing

its full share of benefit to our sugar

industry and after those go back the

suggestion that perhaps we could

consider introducing the toad into this

country from a white

when Gumley was our entomologist at the

time and he was said over there Hawaii

to get a colony of toads together and

bring them back to Australia and

establish a colony in North Queensland

this he did very effectively over the

long period of course it was necessary

to keep moisture up to the toads in

their crate to keep them alive they

couldn't feed them during the two-week

trip that they would be experiencing

getting down to Sydney from Hawaii and

then of course the other two days to get

them to Moringa in North Queensland

before they could be put into a pond

into an environment that they could

relish

when gum we treated them very very well

he built a very elaborate - at Moringa

with running water to encourage them to

breathe and they responded to his

treatment and they began to breathe very

vigorously yes I could do it me me from

the Teja first port of this place I

brought here by a fella called juste in

a couple of dishes there's about 40

toads in in number in all and they were

released in this particular spot over

there and of course my dad was an

Irishman and it was very very pleased

and he was jubilant about the whole

affair and more so that he said this and

I quote we've got these bloody grubs by

the balls this time and we'll go on to

bigger and brighter things but

tragically we didn't have the grubs by

the balls they asked by the balls

and plexuses sexual act where the male

grasped the female but of course first

he's got to get his female and after the

rains when you have big areas of

temporary water fresh water the males

have gather around the ponds and they'll

call and the call of course attracts the

female and it goes something like this

I suppose the female picks the best or

the sweetest of those calls and when she

approaches close the male will then

grasp her into an plexus and he does

that by getting his forearms which will

notice a very very strong and he pushes

on into the side just under the ribs and

then on a salmon there is a nuptial pad

this nuptial pad is very very sticky so

that when he pushes he thumbs and his

hands into the side of an abdominal

cavity the grip is very very strong and

firm of course it's important that the

script be strong so that he doesn't fall

off and so that other miles to come

pushing off she takes him into the water

and she exudes the eggs and long strands

and as they come out the male releases

sperm into the water which then

fertilizes the eggs and these eggs are

either wrapped around vegetation but

usually it's just left to float in the

water

Oh

Oh things one can code female can lay up

to forty thousand eggs in a summer

that's a large number of eggs

the theory going that they need the

forty thousand just so two can survive

to replace the female in the mail but if

you see ponds where cane toads have been

breeding more than to survive

besides the ponds are just black if

young cane toads and from what I can see

a large number of those survive the eggs

stay in the water and then they start

dividing and eventually they start to

look like small tadpoles within the egg

sac the tadpoles when they get

sufficiently developed start wriggling

and they ruptured the egg sac and they

go into the water as tadpoles in the

tadpole is a very distinctive tadpole

it's glossy black no other Australian

frog has a glossy black tadpole and then

in the water for about four five weeks

it develops the back legs come out then

finally the front legs then the tail is

reabsorbed and they move onto the land

as small tones

well they've been here for 50 years or a

bit more and look there's just millions

of them in this river there's certainly

no shortage of cane toads in the area

they have a tremendous success rate they

can lay tadpoles and small puddles 15%

sea water clear running rivers like this

just about anywhere equally interesting

is that these tadpoles if you look at

them very carefully some of them are

beginning to get legs and they do that

at a very very small body size the

native tadpoles have to get much much

larger than these little fellows and so

they have to stay in the water a little

bit longer than what a cane toad can so

cane toes get in fast big numbers

they're out fast and it aids their

colonization to a tremendous extent

my first memory of the toad was the

unusual noise that I heard in the

billabong hole across from the house and

I did inquire from our pest board

officer as to what the noise would be

and that was the giant toad they soon

came out on the roads of a night and it

did look as though they would really be

a terrible menace that they would take

possession of everything you'd flatten

the mouth of the car and the stench from

when we like a school of mullet coming

up the river

when one species of cane beetles in the

cane fields it just doesn't come and

contact with the ground and we know that

cane toads can't fly and when the other

species of cane beetle is in the cane

fields it's there when there is no cover

on the ground and cane toads just art in

cane fields when there isn't any cover

in short the lifestyles of the cane

beetles and the cane toads just didn't

synchronize it couldn't succeed they

weren't much use at all as far as the

cane beetle was concerned but they did

manage to get rid of a lot of stray dogs

the dogs would only attract until he's

moving toads and grab them and of course

the Buffalo Marino's only protection was

he's poison second he used to let the

dogs have it and eventually they for

quite a few dog died

you know looking back over the years and

so forth when you look at our import

what we brought into Australia this must

have been a great country long before

white men ever came to the joint we

brought in foxes and hares and then to

cap it all off we bring this monstrous

thing called a toad in an Adelaide man

has been fined for his bizarre

impersonation of to Queensland identity

crime Cannes reports police told the

poor that late magistrates caught the 32

year old Philip William Elliot was

charged after he was found crouching on

the side of a road at birkenhead in

Adelaide

police say Elliot was jumping out onto

the road into the path of oncoming cars

when he was questioned he told them he

was the Jovi Aki Petersen and a cane

toad he's pleaded guilty to the charge

of disorderly behaviour and has been

fine $50 the cane toad spread faster and

more widely than we'd anticipated in the

first instance and it wasn't long before

it got into southern Queensland and then

attracted a lot of attention from people

who were not much interested in

controlling cane grubs no matter where

you

Oh

toad was introduced to about eight or

nine different cane growing regions and

since that time they cover about 40

percent of the area of Queensland a

small portion of northern New South

Wales and they're moving over through

the Gulf country and part of the

Northern Territory it's difficult to go

anywhere in Queensland without coming

across references to all the idolatry

concerned with the cane toad because

they are they are ubiquitous they're

absolutely everywhere people are brought

up with them I think but and all the

Queensland is a terribly protective of

them it would seem that although

something as obnoxious as the cane toad

you would expect would have been

eradicated by now far from it they

because they've got them and nobody else

has got them much the same as they've

got Joan nobody else has got him yet

they I think regard them with sort of

perverted reverence

hello dear John as this at all Ted story

that's right how rich and Gordon died

when I first from least the kind pout

tell me about your recollections and

renters they're nice first relation John

yes now you know what a kerosene tin is

like yes drop straight in they wouldn't

go into a kerosene tea they would have

eaten the cat that's right there with

that mess that if you put them on a big

square mouth shovel you couldn't lift

them oh that is true as I stand here

you're not pulling my leg I am NOT I can

remember that was yesterday there are

still quite a large number of the toads

around but not as big as they used to me

but I still love the animal and they

give me a lot of enjoyment term that's

often used to describe that relationship

the toads have with people as homo

philic which means that they just love

people and this is true in so many

different ways because we are just so

kind to the toads usually we don't know

that we're being so kind to them that we

provide places for them to live around

our Gardens under garden gnomes in pipes

under houses we supply dinner for the

many nights when we turn lights on and

the toads sit around the lights and they

eat the insects that come along well how

do you see now I have quite a few which

I attract by using a light which is not

very powerful which attracts insects and

also occasionally I feed them with cats

I started food encaged risk it's because

they started robbing the cats tissue

briskets so I used to put this as a

whisk except I didn't come inside so

everybody was happy you can hear me our

noise probably in the background which

is a code which is probably mating and

that's what I like about why they

doubted things the way the hide and

cunning enough to peek out behind things

they can be behind the leaf something

like that if you quick enough you'll see

they're always what you move there you

go I definitely think they're a harmless

animal and nobody's got any right to

fear that I'm not sure whether I would

call them pets exactly but there they

mates

as open send we often see the mating

right here in front of us on the lawn

they are a magnificent animal if you

just take the care and watch them and

just see how they act under different

circumstances

that's the hard question to think of

them as friends they're just friends

friends I suppose because say they're

around the place you get used to them

you look for them they know they're

there singing they're calling it's a

it's not only a pleasant noise it's a

friendly noise no I love it

they are harmless and they jump they

jump on us jump on my feet and they

haven't no fear at all of coming near me

or anybody that's with me well as a

matter of fact there are some people up

here that would like the cane toad

recognized for what it's done for

Queensland particularly and they were

going to in fact erect a statue in its

honor at Gordon Bell on the road

approaches to Cairns

well the proposal to commemorate the

cane toad was brought before the

Bicentennial Committee of the Margrave

Shire Council to record a unique part of

North Australia's history it was

released from Moringa just outside

Gordon bar it is going to be a cane toad

bust of around about a metre in height

sitting on a tooth two foot pedestal so

all all up about five feet and if

there's going to be photographers

delight and the kids could sit on its

shoulders and whatnot and all together

it was going to be we felt like the dog

sitting on the attacker box five miles

and Gundagai and with that sort of

tourist potential

I surely this bar sir camping is right

frame of mind fancy anyone wanted to

erect a monument or a stone or some form

of remembrance to this creature have

been brought in

the council eventually came to

conclusion that wasn't in their best

interest to do so personally I was

extremely disappointed because I felt

that this was without big chance to get

a unique feature into our tourist

development industry a young developing

tourist industry where it was very

special and the fact that that didn't

come to fruition and I might add with

not spending a penny of rate payers

money because it was a Bicentennial

project I felt that we just missed the

boat just a little bit well bill Cogan

from the Department of Defense came and

seen me and asked could I bind a book

for Prince Charles and Lady Di for the

wedding present and he said he wants

something very special and I thought all

cane toads it took me about a month to

more or less join five-six skins

together and that's the finished product

the Department of Defense received a

letter from Buckingham Palace and it

reads we are both overwhelmed by your

great kindness in thinking of sending us

such a splendid wedding present thank

you so much for taking all the trouble

to find something which is so greatly

appreciated and will bring so much

pleasure to both us throughout our

married life you're sincerely Charles

the cane toad poison is a mixture of

several compounds and one group of

compounds are steroids which affect

heart muscle and these are known as Bufo

toxins generally well these of course

are the toxins that kill as a memo

logist I always had native animals

around me that I was studying all the

time and I had a western native cat that

was effectively a pet it had been with

us for about five years and had been

very important to me as a study animal

the moment we got the Brisbin I left the

thing out into the backyard as I was

accustomed to doing it had the run of

the outside and the inside and the first

thing I did it rushed over and grabbed

what to me in the dark looked like a

gigantic frog never even thought about

what it was and I didn't think anything

more about it than that that's a natural

thing for a native cat to do but about

two minutes later the animals obviously

in some kind of trouble it was beginning

to sort of stick its tongue out and

salivating rolling around on the ground

within 20 minutes that beautiful unique

animal which I can only say I wasn't I

was told me in love with this was a this

was something I was really wrapped up in

died in my arms and techni contractions

the glands that produce the toxic

material are located in the skin but

they're aggregated over the shoulder in

this region here and here and if you

were to press these glands but you

should cover your eyes with glasses if

you're going to engage in this type

activity then if you were to press these

glands here there you can see the venom

set out they do there are numerous pores

over those being set under pressure that

toxic material will shoot for about a

meter

all in all it's a quite a cocktail of

compounds toxic compounds and I think

that people would do well to take care

when handling toads hello oh hi Wendy

he would just be after all people have

been killed as a result of eating toads

both in Fiji and in the Philippines are

are well recorded instances take Neddie

down there a couple times yeah

as far as children are concerned oh I

think that toads could be a real problem

particularly with babies would be the

young children who are attracted by the

hopping gate of the toad see you then

Wendy okay bye

children booing what there will then

inevitably squeeze the toads and

probably put them in their mouths and

suck them and so forth all the results

could be quite disastrous

the death of my native cat led me into a

kind of an eternal revenge against the

cane toads when I began to come to grips

with what was going on here and every

time I ended up in the bush somewhere in

North Queensland I felt it was a bit of

responsibility to reduce toad numbers so

I was running around at night and I

actually hit one of these cane toads

with my geology pick and ants it's all

my fault what happened but nevertheless

it's an unforgettable experience the the

moment I might pick hit the back of the

toad the toad was instantly dead but I

felt like somebody in turn and hit me

right in the face with a baseball bat or

like a bee had stung me in the eyeball

it was the most excruciating pain I've

been hit in the eye by the material

jettisoned out of the gland of this toad

and it was fully about six hours before

I could actually begin to see out of

that eye again it's it's a dreadfully

incapacitating experience and when I

would not want to go through ever again

Donal Don Juan says that this is some of

the South American Indians they when

they get their mescaline out of the

cactus they say that and have it that

you actually start to see the world

through the consciousness of the cactus

that you start to see what the world

looks like from the eyes of the cactus

and he takes the same

before Elaine is the active ingredient

found in the skin of the cane toad it's

listed as a dangerous drug in schedule

two of Queensland's drugs misuse Act

this means that it will attract a

maximum penalty of life imprisonment

under the drugs misuse Act Queensland

police have power to stop and detain

people and search people they reasonably

suspect - carrying the drug and also to

place tracking devices on vehicles they

suspect to be carrying the drug okay -

another security and then I first found

out about the use of the toxins from the

cane toad back in the 1970s when our

station here is an investigating

detective and we found that in places

like hippie communes around ceded by and

near Cannes

when heroin and other drugs weren't

freely available the next best

alternative was to go out and get a cane

toad kill it boil it down into a

solution for ten minutes a little bit of

water and drink the residue the effect

that I found out that it had on them

from what I've been told was that they

had fantastic color hallucinations it

warped their sense of time and it also

affected their mental capacities and yes

little quite easily a little quantity at

first thing larger a little bit first

I didn't didn't like it too much

a Townsville man has claimed that cane

toads were responsible for the death of

22 of his large goldfish mr. Paul Devine

president of the Townsville aquarium

society has killed about 200 toads in an

attempt to save his fish I think the

biggest lots of golf fish I've had would

be the latest time when when I've lost a

lot of these fish where with a cane had

I lost about 30 golf fish in that time

the kind cacain dad's attacked the gulf

fish in the pond as I scream around in

the water the kind had a detective

tried to get onto the fishin and

strangling and consequently they kill

with quality fish the kind of kind eyes

were were were looking for someone to

some something to run I hide with I

think that's what what I wanna do in

their brain G to try and mate with him

they actually I you'll kill or I killed

the other fish I've had him attempt to

mate with my foot I've had him attempt

to and Plex with my hand but most often

I've seen him trying to amp Lex with

hunks of mud once I realized what was

what the cause was I immediately started

getting rid of all these counters by

killing the cane toads I got a piece of

pipe and went about took getting rid of

all these cane toads I caught up user

cane toads were quite quite hard to kill

so I got another fan on and push through

the others and after bothered by a

period of a week I killed one hundreds

of cane toads

there are there a bit of it over a rough

Bunch but the they're all right outside

the pond but not in in the pond

on December 27 1959 on a dirt road three

miles east of fingal bay an adult male

toad was observed during ham plexis with

an adult female toad at least three

factors appeared quite unique about this

situation first the female was dead and

had been for some time it appeared as if

she had fallen victim to a car the limbs

were already stiff abdomen greatly

distended and the smell of putrefaction

about her secondly of course it appears

strange that the male should be so

intent as to fail to observe the females

condition thirdly the time and place we

encountered this pair was unusual it was

at 1400 hours on a sunny afternoon but

even more interesting was the location

the middle of the road the sexual drive

appears strong enough knees toes to

explain his accepting her but his

continuance through a possible 8 hours

of daylight seems rather strange

when we first came up north we had

friends had two little girls and these

little girls had the cane toads as pets

instead of little dollies they had these

contains they actually had little

dresses made up from little skirts and

beds in a doll's house they used to

dress the toads up and tuck them into

their little beds they used to carry

them about and I wrapped up a little

baby bunting type of things like you do

little dollies these girls had names for

them let's set up little tea parties and

they used to get these toads and scratch

their tummy and the things that lay back

obviously enjoying it and stick their

legs up into the air and and just fall

asleep in our the most contented good

little just so ugly

you just began if everyone who look at

what I want even my god stop or Monica

beach a coupon for a cookie love de

parar you might in school you can be a

painter

Oh

when I tickle his tummy he is he really

likes it but if I tickle his feet he

doesn't like sometimes I'm calling

greening sometimes I call him ready

sometime not calling came almost tied

sometimes I call him Dairy Queen well

there's a number of popular

misconceptions about cane toads one of

which is that they feel disgusting to

touch but this isn't true at all they

feel quite dry not slimy the skin is

slightly rough but it does have a nice

silky feeling and you don't get warts

from them another misconception is that

just by touching them the toads will

exude their poison and this is also not

true for a toad like this to exude any

of its poison from its glands it has to

be severely harassed for instance being

picked up in a dog's mouth and really

severely shaken I mean to just handle a

toad like this it doesn't cause at any

distress at all in fact I think they

quite like it

lower King 2 may look spike

Annie's manners may be frightened boy

we had rain here we had a bad 12:14

offer on a driveway and it was some kind

of a little boat flying around yeah and

they were going after those folks

they're all fighting over the one dollar

we'll eat cat food yeah thank you for

that call okay have a good day

a July yes if the dogs and cats don't

come straightaway to be fed they will be

have all their food eaten up by cane

toads they'll just come in they love

anything brave in peace it doesn't

matter I'll watch it what it is if the

dog doesn't have it it's gone by morning

the kite and tides do not mess about but

get in for their bit and they eat it all

up one of their ways of amusing

ourselves at nighttime was to feed him

with cigarettes of these Buffalo merino

toads could really smoke they loved them

it will clean up the slugs the snails

and a lot of other pests in the garden

they can't hurt like to going underneath

lights their lace reflects the moths the

insects when this way he goes under

needed and swallows him up he say action

is the same thing like a vacuum cleaner

if you see something pop off he goes and

pick it up and swallow it in like a

vacuum cleaner sucks it into his body

gut content analysis is shown as it'll

eat virtually any living thing that's

small enough to get in its mouth from

frogs to our small birds to caterpillars

to insects crabs all sorts of things

in fact one research has showed that the

toad will even try and eat ping-pong

balls as they bounce past the front of

them so the general selection of food

for a cane toad is if it moves or even

if it doesn't move if it can be fitted

into its mouth and it will attempt to

eat it we even found situations which

the wretched toads were eating the

native animals in one case a toad was

gutted and found to contain in its

stomach a pygmy marsupial Mouse and this

is a very rare native marsupial which in

fact I was studying as a student at that

point so is there

interested one of these really important

animals to me came out of the stomach of

a cane toad anything that moved that was

smaller than the cane toad was potential

prey

well the cane toads clean our wildlife

not just by eating it it's also killing

it by being eaten by that wildlife this

Death Adder here for example has no

sooner grasp this cane toad and it's

dead the damage that he has inflicted on

the natural environment itself

you take ibises wild duck they're all

been affected by this fellow soon as

they eat him he'd they die I have seen

snakes Taipans death adders you'd open

them up and be a toad inside them he has

definitely destroyed most of the natural

habitat around this place it was quite

common to have kookaburras for example

brought in with a cane toad half down

its throat in a way that a kookaburra

could normally manage a native animal

but halfway through the process of

swallowing this cane toad who falls out

of the tree stone dead and it's like

it's swallowed a cyanide pill and this

is a thing that kind of scared us these

little walking disaster areas unlike any

other kind of prey that the native

animals were accustomed to they gave the

native animals no second chance

no warning no bitter taste that makes

you drop the animal if they bit it

firmly enough behind a head they were

dead so from that point of view it's a

disaster because it's an introduction of

an animal that the bush simply had no

experience with and couldn't cope with

he's poses a bigger Menace as the German

army did in World War two

the invasion is on and I appeal to

everybody to wherever you see a toad if

no hesitation running over and killing

the monster

well I line them up with the driver's

side front wheel and it's not quite as

easy as it used to be with the big fat

tires on the RX 4 master but I seem to

be able to get most of the ones I line

up on the right-hand side of the road I

know I've made a clean kill particularly

if the toad is actually facing towards

the vehicle because the air that's

inside the toad is trapped within the

head and blown out towards the back end

and the toad really goes off with a

being like a balloon going off well I

really go out of my way to run over cane

toads basically because I have a very

profound love of the wildlife that

occurs here naturally if it was possible

to remove them and totally eradicate

them from Australia and I was capable of

doing it I would spend a lifetime doing

exactly that

anyone tried to hurt one of my toads

there'd be a lot of noise and they

realize I wouldn't a lady no and I must

confess I don't like that look at the

animal no I can't have any strong

affection for him but I think I've got

to give him credit for doing a good job

for us the cane toad is really an

excellent invasion machine it is made in

many ways so that it can move rapidly

into an area it is able to move human

assisted as well as under its own steam

it reproduces incredibly well it can

produce 30,000 eggs per year start

producing after one year may be produced

for 16 years its connect virtually

anything so food requirements aren't

really a problem it can live in most

habitats as long as the some water and

it has got excellent predator defense

because it is poisonous at most stages

of its life cycle so nothing can really

touch it it's a great machine indeed

these eight toads at one sitting and

produce a hundred and twenty thousand

eggs they might do that too perhaps even

three times a year come the wet season

in the top end and the world-famous

wetlands you're going to have nothing

but a sea of little black tadpoles in

the dry season those famous worldwide

Billabong's

are going to be seething with hundreds

of thousands of toads just like these

from there the total conquest of

northern Australia is but a hop step and

a jump our studies would indicate that

it's possible that the toad will spread

right across the northern part of the

Northern Territory this far as the

Kimberley region in northern Western

Australia down the coast of Queensland

and as far south into New South Wales is

possibly coffs harbour it's entirely

possible when you consider what we're

previously thought to be the limitations

on the toad and what it seems to be able

to do now that the toad is rapidly

adapting the conditions that previously

might have constrained it if the the

toad is coming in basically it's going

to come in I can't see any simple way of

stopping as it press

so what we're going to gradually see is

one of these classic human disasters of

a monoculture gradually a single species

replacing and a single introduced

species replacing many many natural

species so that what's really happening

here is that an ecosystem is it threat

by being chopped away at the base and

that will have repercussions all the way

up through behold the food chain in

which the tote is insinuated itself so

that we don't really know what the full

effect ultimately will be but already

we've seen that some of the dominant

carnivores in those ecosystems are

probably going to vanish at the moment

we have absolutely no way of controlling

the Conti

don't

Oh

why

like against your food

oh yeah

about the dance breathe

okay coming

and dogs coming

Oh

yeah

Oh

there