Doug_Basberg wrote: I have heard of the cane toads on the Discovery channel on Sat TV. Sounds like a disaster on the propgram - reproduce by the millions, poisonous to touch, spreading like wildfire across the North.
Your on the front lines. Is it as bad as they make out? I heard they were introduced from South America to eat some crop eating beetle and they had no predators because of poison skin. You post makes it sound like only a nuisance. I am curious.
Cane toads are a real problem, they have poison glands that will kill just about anything that eats them, they are not dangerous to touch, though I would suggest washing your hands before handling any food.
A lot of native animals look at the cane toad as an ugly frog and think hey natural food source eat and die 
They were introduced into the Sugar cane fields in Queensland to eat and control the sugar cane beatle ( another introduced species) except sugar cane beatles live near the top of sugar cane and the cane toads think I could make an effort to climb the sugar cane to get to the beatle or I could feast on all the bugs at ground level ( cane toads are not good climbers).
Cane toads are a real mega enviromental disaster and have spread south into New South Wales and west into the Northern Territory killing native bugs birds and animals plus domestic cats and dogs.
But in the true Aussie spirit in adverse conditions we play down the seriousness of the problem, this is not to be taken that we do not care as millions of dollars are spent annually to try prevent the spread and into research to eliminate this intoduced plague.
Do an Australian google search for Cane toads and then do one for cane toads souvenirs ( for a laugh)
Cheers
Ron
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