Steady on, wasn't CSIRO who brought in the Cane Toads. Was some bloke from a Qld govt body, Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations - existed until 2003. And there were people who thought it would be a bad idea.In 1932 Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations plant pathologist Arthur Bell attended a conference in Puerto Rico where he learnt of, and then reported on, the apparent success of an American toad species in reducing populations of cane beetles.
Three years later, in June 1935, Bureau entomologist Reginald Mungomery travelled to Hawaii, where the cane toads had been introduced from Puerto Rico. Mungomery captured a breeding sample and returned to Gordonvale near Cairns, where a special enclosure had been prepared for them.
By August the toads had successfully reproduced in captivity and 2400 were released in the Gordonvale area. Remarkably, no studies of the toad’s potential environmental impact had been carried out. Nor had the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations even determined whether the toad would actually eat the cane beetles.
Walter Froggatt, a prominent entomologist, was rightly concerned that the toads would become a significant pest.
“This great toad, immune from enemies, omnivorous in its habits, and breeding all the year round, may become as great a pest as the rabbit or cactus,” he wrote in 1936 inThe Australian Naturalist, vol. 9.
Froggatt successfully lobbied the federal Health Department to ban further releases of the toad. However, the prime minister at the time, Joseph Lyons, succumbed to pressure from the Queensland government and the media to rescind the ban in 1936.
Defining Moments in Australian History: Introduction of cane toads - Australian Geographic
