Uni Assignment help

[kaitira]

Hi all,
I am a student at James Cook University and im involved in a group developing an educational development resource for high school students with a focus on
biodiversity and natural icons. We are going to investigate this area by looking at the introduction and impact of feral species particularly the cane toad.
What I was hoping is that someone out there has seen first hand the impact cane toads are having on our reptiles or amphibians. If anyone has, I would greatly appreciate a statement of what you have seen and how they are affecting our reptiles or amphibians, basically how they are affecting Australia’s biodiversity. We need to involve community organisations which is why I am asking here at Aussie Pythons.

 

[Jason]

cant help with that specific question but check out Rick Shines website, if you cant find it go through usyd site, he is the leading researcher on the toads and has a bucket load of papers on them and their effects etc.

 

[Kitah]

I'm not sure if its helpful... but here goes; During the dry season, our dam level often gets quite low, and when it does it is very easy to see tiny native baby frogs hopping around on the muddy areas. However, if the dam is visited again a few days later, quite often there will be an incredibly large number of baby cane toads, and virtually all of the natives have gone.

 

[geckoman1985]

you could also look at the impact that the asian house gecko is haveing on the native geckos as well
i know a bit about were thay came from and how thay got here and the impacts thay have

 

[waruikazi]

I worked as a snake catcher and wild life rescuer in darwin until relatively recnetly. I have seen a big drop in goanna and frill neck numbers and have found both of these dead and dieing from suspected cane toad poisoning. Same with birds like Ibis'. I have seen a drop in the numbers of mulgas and death adders around darwin. I have found one slatey grey that had a toad half way down it's throat, after regurging though it was fine.

That kind of info help?

 

[wiz-fiz]

my grandad found a dead death adder with a dead cane toad with fang marks in it, i might be able to get some pics from him, but not promising anything.


Will

 

[waruikazi]

Interestingly though i did not see any golden tree snakes killed by toads.

 

[ryanharvey1993]

yer I find it strange that so many people in Qld find green tree snakes yet they are a major frog eater, are they getting killed by them but are just really common anyway so it isnt affecting there numbers or are they immune to the toxins?

 

[notechistiger]

The cane toad has had an enormous negative impact on Australia's native flora and fauna. In particular, the toads have decimated the populations of frog in and around Southeast Queensland. A direct example of this is an observation by the author of an adult cane toad killing and eating a young green tree frog. Also noted is the toxicity of the cane toad spawn to Australian native and endemic species. This, in turn, disrupts the ecosystem in which the cane toad and various other amphibians call their home.

I wrote this without any spell/grammer check, so please feel free to correct anything of the sort should you use it.

 

[waruikazi]

yer I find it strange that so many people in Qld find green tree snakes yet they are a major frog eater, are they getting killed by them but are just really common anyway so it isnt affecting there numbers or are they immune to the toxins?

I think it is because the toads are strictly terrestrial and GTS are very arboreal, they don't really come into contact with each other.

 

[notechistiger]

How many people have seen green tree snakes on the ground? It is possible that they eat frogs, and not toads, because frogs can climb and toads cannot.

 

[saratoga]

Cane toads have had a huge impact on wildlife in the Top End....particularly on goannas and snakes. There are however a lot of myths getting around about them.

Someone else on this site referred me to this website this morning. It has lots of fantastic info and comes direct from the Rick Shine labs at Sydney Uni so you know its all straight up.

It should have all the info you need.

check it out at http://www.canetoadsinoz.com

I think GTS and Slateys have come from a group of snakes that have more recently arrived in Australia...the colubrids and they have evolved in areas that have had rich toad populations for a very long time...eg asia...and hence have some degree of immunity.

 

[crocdoc]

I spent some time in Arnhem Land in the early eighties, while doing research on crocodiles. There were goannas everywhere, particularly Varanus panoptes. I can even remember looking out the car window on the way to a conference in Darwin and seeing a huge goanna in the middle of a bowling green, with a lot of elderly folk in white standing around patiently waiting for it to shove off.

A little over two years ago I returned to the area for the first time, when a group of us drove from Darwin to Kununurra and then back again. East of the cane toad line, not a single goanna was seen. At night, cane toads everywhere you looked. As soon as we crossed the cane toad front going west we started seeing goannas everywhere. Every creek had mertensi and every now and then a panoptes would run across the road. In the Kununurra area, those two species and mitchelli were seen several times a day.

Huge difference, in my opinion.

 

[kaitira]

Thankyou to everyone, this has been really helpful and we should be able to use a lot of this in our resource. Also the websites you put me on to were excellent and exactly what i was looking for.

Thanks again
Kaitira