So What Can Be Done About Toads?

Many people in Australia have decided that there are just too many toads and they have spread too far - therefore, why bother to try to get rid of them? Well, something can be done and the first obstacle is to forget how many of them there are and just get out there and concentrate on your own little patch. If lots of people look after lots of little patches, a big impact can be made.

But before you grab a net and a plastic bag, we need to point out that toads should only be disposed of if you are in an area where the Marine toad (cane toad - Bufo marinus) is an introduced pest. There are more than 200 species of Bufo worldwide and most of these are not pests - in fact, many are endangered. Some Bufo species look like the cane toad as well so the European toad (Bufo bufo) and the American toad (Bufo americanus) for example, should NOT be hunted down and eliminated. This disposal page is mostly for Australian use so if you are Australian, read on!

You can help elminate cane toads on your property, at a nearby playground or creek and at your school ground. This can be done at various stages of the cane toad life cycle. For example, you can pull their eggs out of ponds and dams; you can scoop up toadpoles with aquarium nets (only if you can ACCURATELY identify which are toads and which are frogs) and you can hunt for young toads and adults. You can volunteer to join organised groups who are working to clear cane toads from a particular site (such as Gladstone Toadbusters) or you can organise your class to do this as a class project.

How to dispose of toads is something that some locals look upon as a creative exercise based on the Gary Larson notion 'how many ways can you skin a cat'. We have heard some horrible accounts of what is done to toads just because they are a pest. However, just because the toad is a pest, this is NO EXCUSE for animal cruelty and sadism. The toad doesn't know it's a pest and it feels pain like all other living animals. Cane toads should be killed humanely and this means methods which invoke the least amount of pain and trauma.

We recently found a large toad while surveying for frogs in Cairns. Whatever happened to this toad was a mystery until we had it checked by a vet, but our first sight of it shocked us so much that it took our breath away. Nothing illustrates a point like photos:

the skin around this eye has been fused to the eyeball itself
this eye had been dissolved away by a caustic chemical and the surrounding skin continued to dissolve after the toad was found - it would have been wandering in the bush this way for at least a week when we found it

The eye on the left was damaged and fused to the surrounding skin; the right eye was burnt out entirely and the surrounding skin continued to dissolve after the eye was gone. The vet's conclusion was that a caustic chemical was sprayed into the eyes of this toad. No other damage was seen on the body and, of course, the toad was in intense pain and left to suffer for a long time. This kind of behaviour is disgusting -- pest or not.

  • Don't use clubs or sticks to bash cane toads or grab toads by their legs and bash them against objects. There is a risk to you as well as being a cruel means to kill the toad. Most of the poison in a cane toad is concentrated in two raised areas just behind it's eyes called paratoid glands. If you bash a toad and rupture either of those glands, the toxic fluid can splatter you. If any of this should get into your eyes, you will need medical attention and your vision will be affected for some time.
  • Don't spray chemicals on them such as bleach, hydrogen peroxide or Dettol. These have a reputation of a fast kill but the reality is that not all of them actually kill the toad outright. The amount of pain they do cause is unacceptable. Hydrogen peroxide is an acid; bleach is an irritant and Dettol works by short-circuiting the central nervous system (the sensation is probably similar to being electrocuted). If you should spray something which turns out to be a burrowing frog instead of a toad, this leads to a painful death for the frog. We strongly discourage the use of chemicals but for those who are aggro enough to persist, do not touch any frogs you find once you have held the chemical container in your hands. The slightest residues of these chemicals in your skin will still cause death for the frog and it will take a long time to do it.
  • Many Australians consider running over toads with their cars to be a sport worthy of an Olympic medal. However, swerving on the road is not a safe way to drive and mistaken identity is common. Some frogs will sit on the road looking very much like a toad and their colouration doesn't always display well when hit with very bright headlights.

The easiest and most humane way to eliminate toads is to get rid of them at their egg stage. Pull the toad eggs out of the water and dispose of them by either putting them into your compost bin, burying them in the garden or leaving them on the lawn to dry in the sun. (See our Toad Eggs page for identification.)

The most humane way to kill juvenile and adult cane toads is to catch them and put them into a secure container with air holes (plastic takeaway food containers are ideal). Put the container in a refrigerator overnight which causes the toad to go into a coma-like state. Then move the container to the freezer the next morning and freeze until the next garbage collection day or freeze it for a couple days and then bury them in the backyard compost bin or garden bed.

It is perfectly safe to store the toads in the fridge and freezer and we do this at home all the time. If you get together with your neighbors to clear toads from your street, one of them might have an old spare freezer which can be used by several homes. Another benefit to having to catch the toads is that you can examine them according to the characteristics shown in our 'Make No Mistake' page to make sure they are definitely toads and not a species of ground dwelling frog. And one more benefit to catching the toads is that you can help us study them by turning in ones you find which are sick or deformed. (see our page on Illnesses and deformities!)

Many people are afraid to touch cane toads. However, their skin is dry and they don't release any fluid from their glands unless you hit them or handle them very roughly. Remember, in the early days, adults and children used to keep cane toads as pets and they handled them all the time without problems. We used to have a moderate size toad here named Petunia who was handled all the time and taken to talks (she died from an airbourne disease that came in the door with a sick frog). Even Glen Ingram, a Curator of the Queensland Museum, had a huge pet toad named Betty who weighed well over 4 kilos! If you are concerned about touching toads, you can wear gloves or put a plastic bag over your hand. Always remember to wash your hands thoroughly whenever you have handled cane toads.

A last thought: when you next think of how you will kill the toads in your yard, ask yourself if you would kill an Australian frog that way. If it is inhumane for the frog, it is inhumane for the toad!

 

Last updated: Dec. 29th, 2003