"Cane Toads: An Unnatural History" is an outstanding documentary film, and is worth watching even if the topic of invasive toads doesn't catch your immediate interest.<p>This film's approach to presenting the interaction between man and toad inspired Hamilton Morris, who used it as a conceptual guide when producing his own documentary series. Hamilton interviewed director Mark Lewis in podcast #72.<p>You can find a full copy of "Cane Toads" on YouTube:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkxwrpJg5W0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkxwrpJg5W0</a>
There is another similar invasive story in Australia to do with the prickly pear, introduced with the First Fleet, later spread uncontrollably across the country and was subsequently conquered using the Cactoblastis Moth.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prickly_pears_in_Australia" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prickly_pears_in_Australia</a><p>These are some of the many reasons why Australia now has very stringent biosecurity laws.
A few native birds have developed novel strategies for dealing with them. The jabiru will repreatedly drag them through water until they've released all their poison before consuming them, and the native magpie has learned to flip them on their backs and eat them through their stomachs.
I live in Brisbane, QLD and I have seen one frog in the last 8 years. It's all cane toads now.<p>Apparently the population of one species of monitor lizard has fallen by 90% due to cane toads spreading into their habitat.<p>[1] Monitor lizards trained not to eat toxic cane toads
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35235518" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35235518</a>
You can buy a cane toad leather hat with croc teeth from famous Aussie made Jacaru hat brand.<p><a href="https://jacaru.com/products/1017-outback?variant=29981911941198" rel="nofollow">https://jacaru.com/products/1017-outback?variant=29981911941...</a>
for future archeologists wondering about the comments: the post title has been changed to "Cane Toads: An Unnatural History" but it was originally "What’s Your Favorite Invasive Species?"
Great doco.<p>There's a lot of new lore since the doco, and probably some that's been removed... was that guy really getting high by boiling them?<p>You can now get cane toad tadpole pheromone lures - <a href="https://watergum.org/tadpoletrapping/" rel="nofollow">https://watergum.org/tadpoletrapping/</a><p>> cane toad tadpoles are instinctively drawn to and consume other cane toad eggs <> attraction is driven by a specific pheromone released by the eggs<p>How university ethic committees kill a cane toad tadpole -<p>> Current best practice is the stepped hypothermia which involves putting your catch in a container in the fridge, followed by the freezer (8 hours in each will do for tadpoles)<p>There is some delusional thinking going on there I'll leave to reader.<p>[edit] Their trap is a cunt to set-up. Great MVP but someone needs to design a floating trap or something.... the sides of a dam are not a consistent gentle slop. A great TikTok/Maker challenge.<p>Set-up here - <a href="https://imgur.com/a/IVnOMPm" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/IVnOMPm</a>