Councils in Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales are leading the way in controlling populations of cane toads by partnering with not for profit, Watergum Community to educate and engage the local communities to undertake effective humane cane toad control.
Cane toads are a toxic, invasive pest that have unfortunately become a common sight around much of Australia. The impacts of the biological effects, including lethal toxic ingestion, caused by cane toads is well recognised and identified as a key threatening process under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Cane toads are damaging for the environment, contributing to declines in native wildlife and with the potential to poison resident’s domestic pets. Additionally, cane toads can impact local agriculture, eating beneficial insects like dung beetles and bees. These impacts have a ripple effect, disturbing the balance of other fauna and flora within ecosystems.
Studies show that toad busting – the manual collection of adult cane toads – can remove between 28-47 per cent of a resident population in a single night. Long term, proactive control can additionally be achieved through the implementation of a new, game changing technology. The Cane Toad Tadpole Traps and Lures break the breeding cycle of cane toads, targeting the vulnerable tadpole phase. This allows effective removal of thousands of individual tadpoles at once, before they mature to cause damage to the environment.
In combination, the offtake from these activities can massively reduce toad abundance and potentially even remove isolated populations. Where community action is focused on cane toad management this can protect and maintain priority biodiversity assets, such as priority habitat for species impacted by cane toads.
Watergum’s Cane Toad Challenge incorporates education, community engagement and citizen science initiatives to empower communities to take effective, humane action against cane toad control. Every year, Watergum facilitates thousands of volunteers to dedicate their time towards humanely removing and euthanising adult cane toads and trapping cane toad tadpoles.
This has a positive impact on the local environments, with participants recording a significant drop in cane toad numbers in their area and reporting increased sightings of species of native wildlife that are typically vulnerable to cane toad impacts, such as frogs, goannas and snakes.
The social benefits of Watergum’s Cane Toad Challenge are clear. Residents feel supported in tackling the cane toad issue and enjoy the sense of community and connection to like-minded people that comes with participating in the program.
Watergum’s Cane Toad Challenge is facilitating a cultural shift in attitudes towards cane toad control, offering hope and a coordinated, humane approach with real environmental impact. Local councils have the exciting opportunity to join the Cane Toad Challenge and take proactive action on one of Australia’s most notorious pest animals.
