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Great Wines
Years of Excellence
Hartwell: Sailboat Lake Ontario Mexico Point ~Enlarge
As everyone watches the cane toad's advance into the Great Lakes with baited breath (along with a lot of lobbying, campaigning and frustration), here in Western Australia we have been watching cane toads advance to our state for years. This toad was purposely introduced in the 1930s to control the French's cane beetle that threatened sugar cane crops, and it has been spreading across the country ever since. Cane toads are poisonous, harming native wildlife by eating small animals and poisoning the larger animals that try to eat them.
Like the Asian carp, this is an invasive species with devastating effects. Also like the Asian carp, even though a few toads have crossed the border, there is still time to stop the cane toad's advance before it wreaks havoc on South Australia and Western Australia. Failure of the electronic barrier is of course one reason for the Asian carp's advance to the lakes, and Australia has also trying a barrier fence to stop some toads. However, here in Australia we have an unsuccessful history with barriers (e.g. the rabbit-proof fence) and invasive species in general (e.g. rabbits, foxes, feral pigs, goats, camels, etc.). For cane toads, a barrier is obviously not an option. The toads are known to hitch rides on cars, so, short of stopping cars as they cross state borders, cross-border control is difficult.
Like the Asian carp, the cane toad threat needs to be controlled on many fronts. The main avenues of control thus far have been quarantine checks and raising public awareness of the toads. Scientists are working on a biological control for the toads, and there is hope that a native biological control, e.g. the meat ant, will be found. Creative solutions are also being trialled. For example, making the toads into sausages and feeding them to native quolls, in the hopes it will make them sick and deter them from eating the toads, is being trialled in the Northern Territories. Exporting the toads for use in traditional Chinese medicines has also been suggested as a way to control the toad populations.
© 2010 Great Lakes Town Hall.
The Town Hall is a program of:
The Biodiversity Project - 4507 N. Ravenswood Ave #106 - Chicago, IL 60640
773-496-4020 -
project@biodiverse.org
Comments
Need to Get your facts straight (as usual)
Where did you get the idea that the USACE electric barriers failed? The FACT is that no asian carp has ever been found past the barrier. Apparently you are using the unproved eDNA experiment that found DNA that could have been from a fish scale, feces, or other part of the carp. It's source could have come from a barge passing through, a bird dropping it's food, from sport fishermen using newborn carp as bait, to name only a few possibiities. The DNA can last over 14 days in the cold waters of the river and the lake. So much time for DNA to drift. But once again, no asian carp has been found past the barriers, despite several attempts to find one. And isn't it interesting that Dr. Lodge has never used his experiment in any other area besides the SS canal and the Chicago river. How about the Calumet or the Illinois river? Or how about Lake Erie, where it is a fact that the Asian Carp have been found?
I have an idea though, how about the GL states gather up several hundred millions of dollars and send it to Illinois and Chicago so we can take care of the carp the Chicago way? We will use the money to hire commercial fishermen to overfish the Illinois river in the area that we know there are carp...over 40 miles southwest of the barriers. Then we can take the fish and process it into food for feeding millions of hungry around the world. We can send it to Israel for their gefilta fish (another issue right now). We can also process the fish into fertilizer for America's farms to produce, that's right MORE food to feed the hungry around the world. That's the Chicago way!
Invaders
I don't know why we can not get these forigen species under control. I think the state simply needs to throw more money at the problem. If something is not done right away, it is going to cost mush more in the future.
Early Control
Our government really should invest the money to stop these things while they are a minor issue instead of always waiting until it becomes a major crisis before we take steps to do anything about it.