Adventure Ausrama Blog

It has been a put forward that Australia should build a cane toad-proof fence across Australia. The rabbit-proof fence was a long term failure, largely because investment was not large enough for maintenance. States where the toad pest is already in plague proportions will no put in one cent. All fences put up to control kangaroos, dingoes, feral cats and wild dogs have failed in the long term. Animals are smart and they find ways of getting though when bad weather damages part of a fence line or animals damage the fence themselves. The problem is if fences are put up to stop cane toads getting to life saving water then all other animals are kept out as well. Toads need water. We all know that, but other animals also need water to survive. Basically, the only state with any areas free of can toads is Western Australia. Can we expect all the other states to give funding for this? Of course we cannot. With all states cutting expenditure on health, education and roa

Australia's death adder is contributing to its own extinction. Moving around to hunt their prey is not their method. An adder tempts its victims by laying in ambush and wiggling its tail tip. By wiggling its tail, however, it is noticed by cane toads, frogs and lizards who eagerly gulp down the tasty meal. After cane toads were introduced into Australia death adder numbers plummeted. Ironically as the cane toad attacks the snake it is bitten, so after its meal the cane toad dies - mutual suicide. Even if the snake eats the toad it will end up dead because cane toads are poisonous. For millions of years death adders have survived by enticing their prey within easy reach. Now this behavior is leading to their demise. Man cannot intervene to prevent this. There is nothing that can be done. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://adventure--aust

You don't have to be big to kill a crocodile. A relatively small imported pest can kill one. Cane toads are in plague proportions in the Northern Territory.  Some like it so much here they have grown to be much larger than in their native Central America. Cane toads have poisonous sacks on their heads. When a saltwater crocodile eats a toad assuming it to be a tasty snack the salty ingests the poison and dies.  The problem is so serious that the crocodile population has fallen by half in some areas. Because the species takes a long time to breed up numbers, crocodiles could become very scarce in some regions. Introducing cane toads was a great mistake by Australian scientists. They were brought in to combat beetles destroying sugar crops in 1935, but the toads ignored the beetles and now threaten many native species by eating what they eat. To travel faster around the country some toads have developed larger hind legs to cover a greater distance before the sun goes down. ht

Raising the ire of scientists, mysteries continue to happen. A year ago people in Arkansas experienced an omen for the new year. Thousands of redwing blackbirds fell from the sky, dead. Investigators came to the odd conclusion that fireworks scared them to death. Apparently they flew around blindly in the night, crashing into the walls of buildings. In Altona, Germany, a large number of toads were found dead in a strange way. They had holes in their backs and their livers had been removed. It was concluded that crows had developed a way of getting at the nutritious livers without consuming poison from the toads. Taking the "myth" a little further "experts" said with livers removed the toads' lungs had inflated causing them to explode. Darn clever these scientists. They always have an answer. They do seem to get some things right, however. In Alaska 55 musk oxen were frozen to death despite having two layers of fur. A tidal surge followed a storm a