Feral Thoughts

Kimberley Toad Busters thoughts on the cane toad threat abatement plan

The following remarks from Kimberley Toad Busters came in as a comment on my recent post on the cane toad threat abatement plan. But sometimes the comments get a bit lost and are harder to find later, so I'm posting the remarks as an article in themselves. KTB have done quite remarkable things in the Kimberley and have certainly earned the right to be listened to - I'll also endorse the remarks that it is a part of the world well worth exploring. Unfortunately this trip was again way too short and I'm determined to get the family up there at some stage.

Also, I shouldn't really be credited as "author" of the threat abatement plan. I helped the Department prepare it, but a number of people helped shape it and then it has gone through the Threatened Species Scientific Committee several times and they are the authoritative group that provides advice to the Minister. I do agree with the end product, but encourage anyone to have their say.

Kimberley Toad Busters said…..

Many thanks to Tony for attending the Caring for the Kimberley Environmental Forum held in Kununurra on the 19th – 21st March 2010, we understand Tony spent more time traveling than actually at the forum and appreciate this effort as part of a busy schedule. Tony has made many contributions on behalf of the Government on cane toads including the first Cane Toad Forum organised by Kimberley Specialists and held in Kununurra in March 2005. It was after this forum, after learning of their impacts on wildlife and how little was known about cane toad behaviour, the community decided to form Kimberley Toad Busters. Tony is an author of the recently released TAP, these comments are by no means directed as criticism of Tony’s work, and are only suggestions how data collected by community can fill gaps in scientific knowledge and assist in informing a process like the TAP.

Kimberley Toad Busters has always been as much about gathering information to help scientists find controls for cane toads as ‘toad busting’, hence the large volume of newsletters and cane toad observations published on the website www.canetoads.com.au. Every cane toad caught has had key features including sex and length recorded, samples are dissected for analysis of Lung Worm parasite infection and stomach contents, every ‘toad busting’ trip has a field report of key activities and observations. Many scientific projects have been supported by the efforts of the volunteers. Education is a major role of Kimberley Toad Busters, throughout the Kimberley and WA, especially cane toad identification and the recorded impacts on wildlife. The result over 5 years is a remarkable example of education and community coming together to achieve action on an environmental issue.

Another viewpoint in the brumby debate

Kath Massey from the Hunter Valley Brumby Association has written disagreeing with my post on the need to reconsider methods of control for brumbies in New South Wales. I've posted Kath's letter below and I'll respond to a couple of her points at the end of the post.

Hi Tony,

I have just read your recent article in Feral Thoughts and wanted to comment on some points.

Aerial culling is not a humane method of population control for any animal. You cannot humanely kill a fast moving animal from a moving platform and this has been verified by professional hunters. Horses that are riddled with bullets and left to die a slow agonising death, horse left to stagger around wounded and foals left to starve by their slaughtered mothers can never be considered humane. Then there are the environmental consequences of leaving the carcasses to rot and providing a food source for wild animals such as pigs and dogs. Yes Brumbies are unfortunately ending up in abattoirs but it is certainly a more humane way of killing them.

Brumby numbers in Alps a cause for concern. Public discussion needed.

Brumby, or wild horse, numbers in Australia's Alps are growing steadily and are a cause for concern.  A series of National Parks are linked across the Australian Alps covering parts of Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. The current numbers of horses in the region is unsustainable and the problem is rapidly worsening with perhaps as many as 12-14,000 horses predicted by 2012.

Brumby management is one of the most controversial of all feral animal issues. Few people argue that this number of horses is OK in the region - they are hard-hoofed animals in an area that evolved without hoofed animals and significant damage is caused. Horses form tracks and trails that can lead to draining of significant habitat for rare and threatened species like the corroboree frog and the broad-toothed rat. Native vegetation is significantly altered by horses and there are plants that occur only in this part of the world and nowhere else that are at risk of extinction.

But what to do about feral horses is the subject of much angst and disagreement. Horses occupy an iconic place for many people and the idea that they could be shot is alarming. A government horse cull of about 600 horses in the Guy Fawkes River National Park in the north of NSW caused a huge outcry in 2000 and effectively led to the removal of aerial culling as a method of control in the State. In New South Wales, the only method of control currently available is "catch and remove".

What to do about the toad - opinions vary widely

The Australian Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, has released a draft Threat Abatement Plan (TAP) for cane toads. It is available for comment for the next three months. I spoke about the plan at the Caring for the Kimberley forum in Kununurra last Friday, to mixed response.

One member of the Kimberley ToadBusters Group put it this way, using the threat abatement plan acronym: "You are turning off the TAP, with this TAP"*.  He was fearful, as were most members of the community group that has disposed of over half a million toads in the past six years, that the threat abatement plan would lead to reduced funding for toad busting.

Giant rat poses threat to Florida Everglades

I can understand a kid asking for a giant rat as a pet. What I can't understand is any parent that says "OK". The Gambian pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus) is a size most people would associate with a cat, not a rat. It's a rat that can be a metre long.

This large African rodent ("pouched" as in cheek pouches for hording all that rat food) has cost the taxpayers of the United States a fair few dollars to satisfy the "needs" of a few rat lovers that want to get one up on the Joneses. In 2003, a recently imported giant rat carried monkeypox into the USA, infecting prairie dogs, who went on to infect their new owners.  Dozens of cases in the US midwest were traced to prairie dogs from Phil's Pocket Pets in Illinois. Monkeypox is a pretty serious disease, akin to mild smallpox, so naturally the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) took the outbreak pretty seriously. The disease has about a 10% mortality rate in Africa.