Ugly and unwanted
Wipe out female cane toads
Scientists are hoping to develop a strain of daughterless toads as a way to control these introduced pests.
As the cane toads continue on their seemingly unstoppable march across the top of the continent, researchers at the University of Queensland want to wipe out female toads.
"We have had a lot of experience studying the genes that control that process in mammals and it just a matter now of transferring our knowledge into the cane toad system," he says. Once the gene which controls the mechanism has been identified, the researchers will use standard lab techniques to inject cane toad eggs.
The result - males stay as males but females change to males, says Prof Koopman. This biological strategy has advantages in that there should be no side effects. "The strategy doesn't involve releasing any pathegens, viruses, or toxins into the environment: so in fact the side effects are none."
For instance, he says that viruses can escape to other species or countries. "In this case, the genes are only transferred to other cane toads by mating and you can't effect any of the species you're trying to protect."
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The Toad Files
In Austrian News I read that Australia considers using military force against the "toad invasion". Brought from Venezuela to Australia a long time ago, these toads turn into a serious problem because they lack natural predators. They seem to be so poisonous that even crocodiles who swallowed them died some minutes later.
Ugly and unwanted
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Ugly and unwanted
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got.
Through out my childhood I was chasing around cane toads with golf clubs, bats, rocks, ect, they are tough, luv to breed and if anything’s eats them, it dies...
You could never kill enough of them, there was always plenty more, each night we would go out in the rain and kill as many as we could and next night they would all be back, big fat brown tough toads....
You could never kill enough of them, there was always plenty more, each night we would go out in the rain and kill as many as we could and next night they would all be back, big fat brown tough toads....
By their deeds shall you know them.
J.C
J.C