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Backstory: Busting cane toads Down Under
Australian conservationist Graeme Sawyer is a top general in the defense against a literal amphibious assault.
from the March 16, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
While the task of capturing and killing toads on the ground is left to unpaid volunteers, the federal government in Canberra spends a modest $740,000 a year on cane toad control research, largely through its scientific agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. CSIRO scientists are trying to find pathogens and other deadly infectious agents that could be used to wipe out the pests.
Sawyer leads a grass-roots campaign that is trying to prevent toad numbers from building to the point that they'll wreak havoc on the city's wildlife and domestic pets (a mouthful of toad can be fatal to a dog or cat).
Sawyer had a broad interest in the environment when FrogWatch was founded in 1991, he says. "We were looking at frog populations and distributions. We found a new species – a whole bunch of stuff like that."
But gradually he turned his attention to the impending threat posed by the toads as they hopped and croaked their way in their millions across Australia's tropical north. "The closer they got to Darwin the more political and community concern there was," he says.
He started organizing toad "musters" – a word reflecting Northern Territory's status as cattle country. But instead of the motorbikes and helicopters used to herd bovines, toads have to be rounded up the hard way – one by one, by as many volunteers as can be persuaded to give up their evenings to stem the amphibian invasion.
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