Thousands of Cane Toads Dead After Demented ‘Toad Day Out’

“Gleeful” Australians gathered last weekend to kill thousands of poisonous cane toads, an invasive species that consumes everything in its path and evades predators by injecting them with toxic venom. The toads were massacred by hundreds of participants in Queensland’s first annual “Toad Day Out” celebration.

Revelers snacked on sausages and sipped drinks as the toads were weighed, measured and killed, and a city councilman proudly told of the look on the children’s faces as the toads were annihilated. You can’t make this stuff up.

From Yahoo News:

“To see the look on the faces of the kids as we were handling and weighing the toads and then euthanizing them was just…,” Townsville City Councilman Vern Veitch said, breaking off to let out a contented sigh. “The children really got into the character of the event.”

Queensland politician Shane Knuth, a longtime nemesis of the cane toad who came up with the Toad Day Out idea, figured the best way to combat the problem was to gather Australians en masse for a targeted hunt. With each adult female cane toad capable of producing 20,000 eggs, he said, killing even a few thousand toads could ultimately wipe out millions.

On Saturday night, participants fanned out under the cloak of darkness to hunt down the toads. On Sunday, the toads — which the rules stated must be captured alive and unharmed — were brought to collection points and examined by experts to ensure they were not harmless frogs. The creatures were then killed, either by freezing or by being placed in plastic bags filled with carbon dioxide. Some of the remains will be ground into fertilizer for sugarcane farmers.

It’s easy to understand why Queensland residents, particularly farmers, are so happy to see the toads meet an untimely end. Cane toads threaten native species and spread diseases like salmonella. And, to their credit, the organizers of Toad Day Out did choose a humane way to kill the toads that will not affect other creatures, which is always a challenge when trying to deal with invasive species.

Hey, it’s better than thwacking them with sticks. But still, there’s something terrifying about the image of children smiling gleefully as animals are killed in front of their eyes. It’s like Children of the Cane Toads.

Link [Yahoo News]

Related Posts:

Poison Cane Toad Survives 40 Minutes in a Dog’s Stomach
Crikey! Australians Battling Crocodiles Along with Major Floods
Prehistoric Giant Animals May Have Been Killed by Man, Not Climate Change
Over 1,000 New Species Discovered in Mekong Basin in Past Decade
Removing Cats to Save Birds Causes Bird-Killing Bunny Explosion