Cane toads have spread from northern NSW as a new frontline to be surveyed

When Rick Ensby spotted cane toads on his property on Woodford Island, he rushed to call his local Clarence Landcare group.

The shepherd, from Woodford, said a control officer spent nine days removing adults and metamorphs from the area.

“This has had a huge impact on cane toad numbers for some time,” he said.

But a few years later the notorious invasive pests returned in “huge numbers”, despite the best efforts of Mr Nesby and his wife.

“We both work and also work on the farm, and going to the emu parade every evening takes up quite a lot of time,” he said.

“We’ll definitely do that because cane toads are quite (poisonous) to the native animals and birds that we have a bit of an affinity for that live in this area.

“We grow hay and we don’t want (cane toads) wrapped up in our hay bales and possibly transported somewhere else.”

But this time Clarence Landcare was only able to offer Mr Ensby fundraising buckets and guides because Local Land Services NSW (LLS) had withdrawn its monitoring funding.

Funding redirected to studies

Previously, Ensby’s property was located in a DPI cane toad biosecurity zone, which meant all sightings of cane toads had to be reported.

But this classification, created in 2017, has expired.

LLS Invasive Pest Management team leader Dean Chamberlain said field surveys were underway to determine the range of the cane toad.

“We know where the original biosafety line was when it was established, that they moved significant distances to the west and reasonable distances to the south,” he said.

“We could spend money now where control was exercised in the past, but if it’s 10 or 15 kilometers from the front line, then that’s not really effective invasion control.”

While cane toads have spread westward at rates of up to 60 kilometers per year in Australia’s tropical north, their spread south has generally been much slower.

But Charles Sturt University herpetologist Matthew Greenlees said that was changing.

“They were introduced into the Byron Bay area in the 1960s and spread relatively slowly compared to the spread we saw in northern Australia,” Dr Greenlees said.

“After the bushfires, successive La Nina events and monsoons, they seem to be spreading faster, especially in the last three or four years.

“So from Angourie to Brooms Head (18km) it took them almost 30 years, but now from Brooms Head to Diggers Camp (a bit further) we’re talking five to six years.”

The first signs of this season

Clarence Landcare invasive species officer Matthew Morris said conditions had been ideal for breeding this season.

Bureau of Meteorology data shows Yamba received 615 millimeters of rain between May and August this year, almost double the seasonal average, and temperatures were also above average.

“I think the toads were doing a little better in the winter,” Mr Morris said.

“We had a major heat wave for a week and a half after the winter and that triggered a number of breeding events that we saw very early in the season that were reported to us.”

State Member for Clarence Ritchie Williamson called for the funding to be restored.

“This funding cut is a short-sighted decision that puts our environment at risk,” he said.

“Cane toads are more than just a nuisance – they are an environmental disaster running south through the Clarence electorate.

“The government appears to be asleep at the wheel while biosecurity threats grow.”