New weapon against cane toad population

[niggles]

The pesky cane toad, which has played havoc with native species, could soon be facing death by its own poison. Native tadpoles are repelled by the cane toads' poison, but cane toads themselves are attracted to it. Now, the University of Sydney's Professor Rick Shine says work is underway to manufacture a poison pill to target the rogue tadpoles. "We're hoping that we can come up with a relatively non-toxic pure form of the chemical that'll last for a long time," Professor Shine said. "It'll be safe to use [and] it'll make it a lot easier to go and catch those cane toad tadpoles from that pond down the road." Professor Shine says the poisons have multiple applications. "It turns out that the toad's poison is, sort of, the major chemical signal that cane toad tadpoles use to find out that another cane toad has laid eggs in the pond," he said. "They come racing across to find these new eggs to kill them, so that they don't have any competitors." The poison is extremely venomous, and once extracted, is placed directly in the pests' homes. "It's incredibly poisonous stuff, but it's pretty easy to get a little bit of material that looks a bit like toothpaste," Professor Shine said. "If we put [the poison] secretion in a trap, a funnel trap, a minnow trap, we catch tens of thousands of cane toad tadpoles very, very quickly. "The beauty of it is that the native tadpoles are repelled by this chemical and so they go the other direction." The process of extraction currently involves manually extracting the cane toad poison, but Professor Shine says the research has the backing of the Australian Research Council to create a pill from the toxic substance. "We're working with the University of Queensland with some chemists there. And we're hoping that we can come up with a relatively non-toxic, pure form of the chemical that will last for a long time, that will be safe to use." Professor Shine concedes "there's no way in the world" cane toads can be eradiated from Australia. "[it's] too much work, too many people, too many billabongs," he said. "But if there's a particular area we really care about that has high conservation value, then I think it's a really effective way to stop cane toads breeding."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-13/poison-pill-the-latest-weapon-against-toads/4067352

Edited June 14, 2012 by niggles

[Halcyon Daze]

Go Science!

[DELETED ACCOUNT]

This is very clever stuff... just like how scientists can isolate pheromone chemicals from insects to build effective traps. Things like these that are non-toxic to the environment (as opposed to pesticides) are awesome...