Available On Air Stations. All Streams. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email. Courtesy Steve Johnson. He also encourages people to educate their neighbors. Tags News Environment Invasive Species cane toads. Valerie Vande Panne. Vvandepanne wgcu. See stories by Valerie Vande Panne. Cane toads are omnivores and eat a variety of vegetation, insects, small birds, other toads or frogs, lizards, small mammals, and snakes. If available, cane toads may be attracted to and eat human table scraps and pet food.
Never leave pet food outside to avoid attracting cane toads and other animals. Cane toads were first introduced into Florida to control agricultural pests in sugar cane in the s and 40s. It is believed that current populations are the result of escapes and releases by importers in the s and 60s. Cane toads are currently found in central and south Florida, generally south of the I-4 corridor. The skin-gland secretions of cane toads called bufotoxin are highly toxic and can sicken or even kill animals that bite or feed on them, including native animals and domestic pets.
The skin secretions may irritate the skin or burn the eyes of people who handle them. Cane toad eggs also contain bufotoxin and can harm or kill native animals that consume them.
Cane toads also potentially compete with native frogs and toads for food and breeding areas. To safely remove cane toads, wear eye and skin protection, and wear latex, rubber, or nitrile gloves if handling. Homeowners that need assistance removing cane toads from their property can hire a wildlife trapper.
It is also very important to make sure that you have properly identified the animal as a cane toad and not a native southern toad, which is a beneficial part of the Florida ecosystem. Cane toads are not protected in Florida except by anti-cruelty law and can be removed and humanely killed on private property year-round with landowner permission.
Adult cane toads range in size from inches long, while southern toads only grow to inches long. Southern toads will have well defined cranial crests which look like ridges or horns above their eyes and a small, oval shaped gland visible behind their eyes. Cane toads do not have crests above their eyes and possess a larger, triangular shaped gland behind their eye.
This video from the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences goes over some methods to humanely capture and kill cane toads. If your pet bites or swallows a cane toad, they can become sick and die in as little as 15 minutes without proper treatment.
In less than 85 years, the cane toad population has multiplied to epidemic proportions. Now, some scientists estimate that there are more than million cane toads hopping around our continent, wreaking havoc on our ecosystem and expanding across northern Australia at a rate of 50 km every year.
Cane toad habitat ranges from rainforests, coastal mangroves, sand dunes, shrubs and woodlands. In partnership with the Cane Toad Coalition , WWF-Australia is working to train native predators like the yellow-spotted monitor, freshwater crocodiles, northern blue tongue lizard and northern quolls to recognise and avoid the taste of cane toads. WWF is partnering with Indigenous rangers to protect the critically endangered wiliji in the Kimberley from foxes, feral cats, wild dogs and habitat l One of Australia's smaller endangered marsupials — the northern bettong — is the subject of intense WWF-Australia-led research.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians, whose land we work upon and we pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
At WWF, we work in Australia and in our Asia-Pacific backyard to protect endangered species and habitats, meet the challenge of climate change, and build a world where people live in harmony with nature.
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