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 motaman
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Registered: 12/18/02
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 Australian army urged to fight poisonous toads 
#5767990 - 06/19/06 03:18 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/06/19/cane-toad.html?ref=rss
Australian army urged to fight poisonous toads
Last Updated Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:31:00 EDT
CBC News
Officials in an Australian state want troops sent in to prevent an invasion of cane toads, which carry venom so powerful it can kill crocodiles, snakes and other predators within minutes.
Cane toads were first brought from Hawaii to Australia to fight cane beetles in the 1930s, but became a plague as they quickly multiplied. (Associated Press) Cane toads were first brought from Hawaii to Australia to fight cane beetles in the 1930s, but became a plague as they quickly multiplied. (Associated Press)
The toads achieved notoriety worldwide in the 1980s because their poison can have hallucinogenic properties, giving rise to unsubstantiated rumours that bands of Australian teenagers were licking the toads or smoking their dried skins to get a cheap high — and sometimes dying from it.
Mark McGowan, the environment minister for Western Australia state, said on Sunday that he wrote to the federal defence minister, asking him to move soldiers into a restricted military zone to kill the breeding toads.
100 million cane toads in Australia's tropics
The toads, Bufo marinus, were first brought from Hawaii to Australia to fight cane beetles in the 1930s.
But they spread in plague-like numbers across Queensland and the Northern Territory. Experts estimate there could be as many as 100 million cane toads in tropical Australia.
Now they have reached the western outskirts of the Northern Territory and officials say they are continuing to multiply.
The toads have had a devastating impact on native wildlife. Although the federal government says cane toad poison has not killed anyone in Australia, people elsewhere have died after eating the toads or soup made from their boiled eggs.
The venom produced by the toad's parotoid glands digoxin-like cardioactive steroids and primarily affects the heart.
Among its effects, it can cause a rise in blood pressure and may have hallucinogenic properties.
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http://heffter.org
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