Adventure Ausrama Blog

"Any port in a storm."   ✿   ✴  Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan   ✴ http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/atom.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The toads cannot be stopped - cane toads that is. Some do-gooders are pressing the United Nations to act to stop the vermin from moving in to the Northern Territory and Western Australia. This won't do any good, Territories, states and the Federal Government have given up already. Even annual kills have not reduced the population one iota. Because the pests are moving into the Purnululu National Park, the Wilderness Society is pressing the World Heritage Center in Paris to take action. The Australian Authorities would welcome any extra funding they can get, but it is common knowledge that nothing can be done. World Heritage rules hold states, territories and national governments responsible to control pests in protected parks. In this instance it would be foolish for legal action to ensue. Trapping and fencing will not work. Australian laboratories are working on a biological control mechanism. Other countries with similar problems are working on a similar solution. Until an a...

Have you heard of the person who got part of a needle stuck in his hand and it came out 10 years later through his foot? Strange things like this do happen. It is the body's way of safely ridding the body of potentially dangerous objects. Work on Australian frogs show they deal with such things in a different way. Tiny bead-like radio transmitters were implanted into frogs. They were put into body cavities of frogs and even toads. Oddly, the small devices disappeared. The beads moved along the body into the bladder where they were, in due course, fully expelled from the body. This may sound like something quite obvious and unremarkable until one is informed that the beads were two centimeters long and some of the frogs were only eight centimeters long. It is no mean feat for such a small animal. It was discovered that tissue from the bladder grows out and envelopes the foreign object. The object is then drawn into the bladder. Apparently, frogs have evolved this to rid their...

Australian cane toads really get around, in most unlikely ways. A cane toad got into a golf shoe then survived a plane trip from Brisbane to Perth. It stayed in the shoe six days before being discovered by the shoe's owner. Apparently, this is not unusual. The pests are very tough and resilient. In the above case, quarantine authorities would not comment, though a spokesperson did try to make out that it was a tree frog. The owner of the shoe lived in Brisbane for many years and said it was definitely a cane toad. It seems cane toads won't have to walk across the top of Australia (as they steadily are). Crossing the country is far easier by plane. Cane toads are intelligent as well. It is known that if water is scarce they will follow a cow drawing moisture from cow pats until the cow eventually reaches a river or dam. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/atom.xml http://www.technora...

At last - a solution to Australia's can toad problem. Decades ago the pest was introduced from Hawaii to combat bugs that were attacking sugar cane, but instead of eating the target beetles the cane toads went about settling down here and have been destroying the native habitat ever since. Cane toads have recently reached Perth in Western Australia. Now they are established in every Australian state. Everything has been tried to kill them from hitting them with sticks, gassing them with carbon dioxide, to freezing them. None of this has had any effect on their numbers. A way has now been found, however, of killing off the pests. Placing a few teaspoons of cat food next to ponds in the Northern Territory attracts meat eating ants. When the baby can toads appear from the pond they are eaten by the ants. Most native creatures are affected by the poisonous toxin put out by can toads. Fortunately, the ants are fully resistant. All the toad eggs hatch at the same time, so if you activate...