![]() In 2023 cane toads were found in Dural, northwest of Sydney. By 2022 cane toads had been sighted as far south as Bankstown, southwest of Sydney. By 2019, they had become a pest in the Torres Strait Islands, probably carried there by boat. They have also spread south into northern New South Wales, with one isolated community in Port Macquarie, and were found in the south of Sydney, at Taren Point. In March 2001, the invasion front entered the wetlands of the heritage-listed Kakadu National Park and, by 2009, the toads were close to the Northern Territory/ Western Australian border. By 1978, they had reached the border of New South Wales and, by 1984, they had reached the Queensland/ Northern Territory border. In 1964, they appeared in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The spread of cane toads was slow at first but, by 1959, they had colonised most of Queensland's east coast. Not only has the introduction of the toads has caused significant environmental detriment, but there is no evidence that they have affected the number of cane beetles which they were introduced to prey upon. They now number over 200 million and have been known to spread diseases, thereby affecting local biodiversity. Since their release, toads have rapidly multiplied. Releases were temporarily limited because of environmental concerns, but resumed in other areas after September 1936. More toads were released around Ingham, Ayr, Mackay, and Bundaberg. By March 1937, some 62,000 toadlets were bred in captivity and then released in areas around Cairns, Gordonvale, and Innisfail in northern Queensland. In June 1935, 102 cane toads ( Rhinella marina, formerly ICZN Bufo marinus) were imported to Gordonvale from Hawaii, with one dying in transit due to dehydration. ![]() The success of using the moth Cactoblastis cactorum in controlling prickly pears in Australia led to the hope that the cane toad would perform a similar function. Cane toads were to replace the use of pesticides, such as arsenic, pitch, and copper. Furthermore, conventional methods of pest control, such as pesticide use, would eradicate harmless species of insects as well, so making them undesirable. Adult cane beetles have a heavy exoskeleton and their eggs and larvae are often buried underground, making them difficult to exterminate. Adult cane beetles eat the leaves of the crop, but the main problem is the larvae, which feed on the roots. Those beetles are native to Australia and they are detrimental to sugarcane crops, which are a major source of income for Australia. Native to South and mainland Middle America, cane toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in June 1935 by the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations, now Sugar Research Australia, in an attempt to control the native grey-backed cane beetle ( Dermolepida albohirtum) and French's beetle ( Lepidiota frenchi). In the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the Australian government listed the impacts of the cane toad as a "key threatening process". Cane toads have been very successful as an invasive species, having become established in more than 15 countries within the past 150 years. The recent, sudden inundation of foreign species has led to severe breakdowns in Australian ecology, after overwhelming proliferation of a number of introduced species, for which the continent has no efficient natural predators or parasites, and which displace native species in some cases, these species are physically destructive to habitat, as well. Australia's relative isolation prior to European colonisation and the industrial revolution, both of which dramatically increased traffic and import of novel species, allowed development of a complex, interdepending system of ecology, but one which provided no natural predators for many of the species subsequently introduced. The cane toad in Australia is regarded as an exemplary case of an invasive species.
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