Posted on 04/12/2005 4:46:24 PM PDT by presidio9
Australians in the country's Northern Territory should start smashing cane toads to death with golf clubs and cricket bats in a bid to stop the spread of the toxic creatures, a government politician has urged.
Reuters Photo
David Tollner, the member for the Northern Territory seat of Solomon, said on Monday the cane toads -- which have highly poisonous sacs behind their head that quickly kill native animals that prey on them -- should be eradicated by "any means possible".
Australia has for decades fought unsuccessfully to stop the spread of cane toads, imported from Hawaii in 1935 in a failed attempt to combat greyback beetles which were threatening the country's tropical northern sugar cane fields.
"(When I was a child) we hit them with cricket bats, golf clubs and the like. Things were a bit different, most kids had a slug gun or an air rifle and we would get stuck into them with that sort of thing as well," Tollner told Australian radio.
"If people could be encouraged to do it rather than discouraged the better the chance will be of stopping the cane toads arriving in Darwin and other parts of northern Australia."
Cane toads, which now number in their millions, are so toxic that crocodiles, death adder snakes and wild dingo dogs can die of cardiac arrest within 15 minutes of eating a toad.
Australia's cane toad population now spreads west from the northeast coastal sugar cane fields into the fragile wetlands of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory and are steadily marching towards the territory's tropical capital city of Darwin.
Animal welfare groups discouraged people from taking up Tollner's call to arms, saying freezing the animals to death was more humane.
"We don't want children picking up their golf club or their cricket bat in the backyard and having a go at any animal," a spokeswoman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) told Australian radio.
Female cane toads can lay 8,000 to 35,000 eggs at a time and may produce two clutches a year. The toads reach maturity within a year and have a lifespan of at least five years.
So, will they hook or slice? FORE!
"Hey, Butthead! How much does it cost to fly to Australia?"
Was that Helen Thomas?
Go ahead Dave. If you don't mind I will just stand about 45 degrees to your right and about 20 feet away. Use the two iron and several towels.
The "toadies" will be mad, they smoke the chemical that ejects out of the toads poison glands...
That depends whether the hole has a frog-leg to the left or right...
Animal welfare groups discouraged people from taking up Tollner's call to arms, saying freezing the animals to death was more humane.
Do they sit still on the tee, or does one have to put the tee thru them to get them to stay for the drive? Also, if say the body goes into the cup, but one arm or leg sticks out, does it still count? What about drops?
.22 shorts or .22 birdshot should work fine.
But if I understand correctly, Australia has banned and confiscated all fire arms
FMCDH(BITS)
Nah, that frog is far too good looking to be Helen Thomas.
If it was Helen Thomas I would be screaming right now, "My eyes, my eyes."
BWAHAHAHAHA!!...there is resemblence, isn't there? I think it's the "frog-brow"....or maybe the shape of the "frog-mouth"....ahh, hell, it IS Helen Thomas!
FMCDH(BITS)
was thinking the same thing ...not quite the upright sight picture of a prairie dog, but.. (/shrug)
and right about the Aussies removing an important "pest control tool" (i.e., firearms) from the very folks who could use 'em.
The real problem with bashing them with golf clubs, in my thinking, is this:
Blowback, when toad blood, guts etc splash and hit you in the face.
This is a place for a "stand off" pest disposal tool
Hmmmph. Yeah yeah. Cool! Hmmph.
There is a slight family resemblance (the warts/eyes :), and you could look @ it w/o turning to stone.
You understand incorrectly.
Australia has not banned and confiscated all firearms. People can completely legally own a wide range of firearms, provided they take the trouble to get the correct licence - even up to assault weapons if they want them.
A .22 rifle requires the most basic form of licence (A/B longarm) that anybody can get very easily, as long as they don't have a recent criminal record.
For various reasons, Australia's gun laws have been grossly misrepresented overseas - some people seem to like giving the false impression that we have been disarmed. The laws aren't brilliant - you have to navigate quite a bureaucracy if you want to own anything with any real power - but they're really not that bad.
Here's another one.
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