Group finds toad the size of small dog

[deadliestformula]

Group finds toad the size of a small dog - Yahoo! News
Group finds toad the size of a small dog
DARWIN, Australia - An environmental group said Tuesday it had captured a "monster" toad the size of a small dog.
With a body the size of a football and weighing nearly 2 pounds, the toad is among the largest specimens ever captured in Australia, according to Frogwatch coordinator Graeme Sawyer.
"It's huge, to put it mildly," he said. "The biggest toads are usually females but this one was a rampant male ... I would hate to meet his big sister."
Frogwatch, which is dedicated to wiping out a toxic toad species that has killed countless Australian animals, picked up the 15-inch-long cane toad during a raid on a pond outside the northern city of Darwin late Monday.
Cane toads were imported from South America during the 1930s in a failed attempt to control beetles on Australia's northern sugar cane plantations. The poisonous toads have proven fatal to Australia's delicate ecosystems, killing millions of native animals from snakes to the small crocodiles that eat them.
As part of its so-called "Toad Buster" project, Frogwatch conducts regular raids on local water holes, blinding the toads with bright lights then scooping them up by the dozen.
"We kill them with carbon dioxide gas, stockpile them in a big freezer and then put them through a liquid fertilizer process" that renders the toads nontoxic, Sawyer said.
"It turns out to be sensational fertilizer," he added.

[New_BP_Guy]

Holy Crap!!!

[toker]

that bugger is huge!

Its sad they had to kill it/them.

[John_E_Dove]

Wish they had sent it to me instead of killing it. I've wanted to work with those guys for a long time.

[natas]

I saw a documentary called "Cane Toads" about 5 years ago about these toads. They have taken control of the country and its pretty crazy. The worst part is, they don't even do the job that the scientist thought they would

[Bluzmn59]

A toad that size might actually frighten me! hehehe

[el cascabel]

Originally Posted by toker

that bugger is huge!
Its sad they had to kill it/them.

Eh, not as sad as the negative impact that feral animals can have on an ecosystem.

In South Texas we have a huge problem with feral hogs competing with native wildlife like whitetail deer and javelina. They will push them out, eat all of the vegetation that the native wildlife live off of, and multiply like crazy. Then once the resources are gone, they move on to do the same thing over and over again. It may sound cruel but sometimes the best thing to do is just eliminate them. It's so bad that the wildlife refuges that never allowed hunting are now giving access to hunters to help control the population.

	Hog Island Boa hogg

[telefrag]

yeah, I cant imagine how many snakes, and monitors have died trying to eat those.

interestingly they dont waste them.. they turn them into fertilizer


strange, but hey... whatever works.