Fighting fund set up to beat toads June 05, 2005 From: AAP THE West Australian Government has pledged almost $1 million to stop cane toads invading the state and wreaking havoc on native wildlife.
The $900,000 campaign involves enhanced border security, surveillance and targeted control of detected cane toad populations. There will also be a community awareness program about the risks of cane toads, research into detection and control and identification of biodiversity assets most at risk from cane toads.
A hotline has been set up to allow people to report any sightings of cane toads.
Advertisement: The poisonous toads have reached plague proportions in Queensland where they were introduced in 1935 to control beetles, which damaged sugar canes.
Environment Minister Judy Edwards said the toads had also spread to New South Wales and the Northern Territory and posed a threat to biodiversity in WA if they formed a population.
Two cane toads were found last week in a box of bananas at a market in suburban Canning Vale having made their way into the state by chance on a vehicle.
One toad was already dead while the other was killed by quarantine officers.
Western Australia's peak conservation group, The Conservation Council, yesterday hosted a public forum about the perils of cane toads and why it was so important the state remained free of the pests.
A spokesman for the group said it was important the cane toads remained in the Northern Territory and did not cross the border.
"In Queensland and Northern Territory, cane toad infestation caused the local extinction of animals like quolls, freshwater crocodiles, goannas and elapid snakes," he said.
"Once cane toads colonise an area, native frog populations drop sharply.
"This and many longer-term consequences of infestation have yet to be fully understood, (but) what we do know is that the news is bad."
Author Tim Winton, a keen environmentalist, was a guest speaker at yesterday's forum.
Mr Winton said the Government funding was a positive step in the fight against cane toad infiltration to WA.
In December, Agriculture Minister Kim Chance said monitoring showed how quickly cane toads were advancing to the West Australian border in the far north of the state.
He said there was a very real threat the toads would migrate to Western Australia within the next two years.
"If the toads maintain their current rate of migration, the main distribution front will most likely reach the WA/NT border by the end of the 2006-07 wet season," he said.
