Toad Day Out is a pest control event which takes place in Queensland, Australia on the 29 March of each year. Its focus is to reduce the population of the invasive cane toad. The toads are caught live and unharmed. [1] The day was originally advocated by politician Shane Knuth. [1]
Toads are captured and taken to be humanely destroyed. Prizes are awarded for children who find the heaviest toads, and schools which capture the most toads (by weight). Before they are destroyed, the toads are inspected, weighed and bagged. They are euthanized via exposure to CO₂ gas, ensuring a quick and painless death. [2] Most end up being turned into fertilizer, some are used for research, and a few have been stuffed by a taxidermist. [1]
The cane toad has been a pest since it was introduced to Australia in 1935 [2] by farmers who hoped the toad would control the spread of the cane beetle. [3]
As of 2018, no national eradication program has been implemented due to a lack of resources and technology. [3]
Toad Day Out has been held since 2009. The event was inspired by an episode of The Simpsons called "Whacking Day". [4]
The cane toad, also known as the giant neotropical toad or marine toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad native to South and mainland Central America, but which has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean, as well as Northern Australia. It is a member of the genus Rhinella, which includes many true toad species found throughout Central and South America, but it was formerly assigned to the genus Bufo.
Queensland is a state in northeastern Australia, the second-largest and third-most populous of the Australian states. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, southwest and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean; to its north is the Torres Strait, separating the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north-west. With an area of 1,723,030 square kilometres (665,270 sq mi), Queensland is the world's sixth-largest subnational entity; it is larger than all but 16 countries. Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, including tropical rainforests, rivers, coral reefs, mountain ranges and sandy beaches in its tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions, as well as deserts and savanna in the semi-arid and desert climatic regions of its interior.
Biological control or biocontrol is a method of controlling pests, whether pest animals such as insects and mites, weeds, or pathogens affecting animals or plants by using other organisms. It relies on predation, parasitism, herbivory, or other natural mechanisms, but typically also involves an active human management role. It can be an important component of integrated pest management (IPM) programs.
Quolls are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea. They are primarily nocturnal and spend most of the day in a den. Of the six species of quoll, four are found in Australia and two in New Guinea. Another two species are known from fossil remains in Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits in Queensland. Genetic evidence indicates that quolls evolved around 15 million years ago in the Miocene, and that the ancestors of the six species had all diverged by around four million years ago. The six species vary in weight and size, from 300 g (11 oz) to 7 kg (15 lb). They have brown or black fur and pink noses. They are largely solitary, but come together for a few social interactions such as mating which occurs during the winter season. A female gives birth to up to 30 pups, but the number that can be raised to adulthood is limited by the number of teats (6–7). They have a life span of 1–5 years.
Gordonvale is a rural sugar-growing town and locality situated on the southern side of Cairns in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, the locality of Gordonvale had a population of 6,944 people.
Invasive species in Australia are a serious threat to the native biodiversity, and an ongoing cost to Australian agriculture. Numerous species arrived with European maritime exploration and colonisation of Australia and steadily since then.
The northern quoll, also known as the northern native cat, the North Australian native cat or the satanellus is a carnivorous marsupial native to Australia.
A brumby is a free-roaming feral horse in Australia. Although found in many areas around the country, the best-known brumbies are found in the Australian Alps region. Today, most of them are found in the Northern Territory, with the second largest population in Queensland. A group of brumbies is known as a "mob" or "band".
Duttaphrynus melanostictus is commonly called Asian common toad, Asian black-spined toad, Asian toad, black-spectacled toad, common Sunda toad, and Javanese toad. It is probably a complex of more than one true toad species that is widely distributed in South and Southeast Asia.
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History is a 1988 documentary film about the introduction of cane toads to Australia. Cane toads were introduced to Australia with the aim of controlling a sugar cane pest, the cane beetle, but they over-multiplied and became a serious problem in the Australian ecosystem. It is often humorous, and is used in high schools and colleges as a complement to curricula in biology, ecology, environmental science, anthropology, geography, and communication. It was filmed in Cairns and Gordonvale in Queensland.
Environmental issues in Australia describes a number of environmental issues which affect the environment of Australia and are the primary concern of the environmental movement in Australia.
Dermolepida albohirtum, the cane beetle, is a native Australian beetle and a pest of sugarcane. Adult beetles eat the leaves of sugarcane, but greater damage is done by their larvae hatching underground and eating the roots, which either kills or stunts the growth of the plant. The beetles can also be found in the Philippines and are known there by the local name salagubang.
Walter Wilson Froggatt was an Australian economic entomologist.
The cane toad in Australia is regarded as an exemplary case of an invasive species. Australia's relative isolation prior to European colonisation and the industrial revolution, both of which dramatically increased traffic and import of novel species, allowed development of a complex, interdepending system of ecology, but one which provided no natural predators for many of the species subsequently introduced. The recent, sudden inundation of foreign species has led to severe breakdowns in Australian ecology, after overwhelming proliferation of a number of introduced species, for which the continent has no efficient natural predators or parasites, and which displace native species; in some cases, these species are physically destructive to habitat, as well. Cane toads have been very successful as an invasive species, having become established in more than 15 countries within the past 150 years. In the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the Australian government listed the impacts of the cane toad as a "key threatening process".
Richard Shine is an Australian evolutionary biologist and ecologist; he has conducted extensive research on reptiles and amphibians, and proposed a novel mechanism for evolutionary change. He is currently a Professor of Biology at Macquarie University, and an Emeritus Professor at The University of Sydney.
Cane Toads: The Conquest, a 2010 documentary film by Mark Lewis, tracks the inexorable decades long march of the invasive cane toad across Australia, a "sequel of sorts" to his 1988 cult classic, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. It is described as an "irreverent" blend of "history, nature footage, re-enactments and colorful testimony," documenting what is widely considered to be one of Australia's biggest environmental disasters through its effect on people. It was filmed in 3D.
Frank William Bulcock was an Australian politician. He was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.
Native to both South and Central America, Cane toads were introduced to Australia in the 1930s and have since become an invasive species and a threat to the continent's native predators and scavengers.
The Froggatt Award is presented to people who have made a major contribution to protecting Australia's native plants and animals, ecosystems, and people from dangerous new invasive species.
Cyril Eugene Pemberton was an American economic entomologist known for his work with sugar cane pests. He was the chief entomologist for the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association during the interwar years and a leading researcher into biological control of insect pests in sugar cane. Pemberton was influential in the introduction of the voracious cane toad from the Caribbean into Hawaii and Australia, where it became one of that continent's worst invasive species.
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