Batter a cane toad today!

Conservationists have been appalled by a suggestion by an Australian MP that residents should help wipe out the country’s dreaded cane toad – by battering them with cricket bats and golf clubs. The toads were introduced from South America to the state of Queensland back in the 1930s, in the hope of reducing numbers of a particular type of beetle. But now they have overrun large areas of the state and other northern parts of the country. The situation is made worse by the fact that the creature’s skin is poisonous enough to kill animals that eat them – and can also be fatal for small children. But now David Tollner, a liberal MP, appears to have endorsed hitting them on the head with a blunt instrument as a means of pest control. He reportedly told the Australian Broadcasting Radio that this was a “sport” he practised as a child: “We hit them with cricket bats and golf clubs and the like back then. Most kids had a slug gun or an air rifle and we’d get stuck into them with that sort of stuff as well.” If people can be encouraged to do it, rather than be discouraged, the better our chance of stopping the cane toads. My view is that we have to eradicate them by any means possible.” But a RPSCA spokesman reportedly countered: “We don’t want children picking up their golf club or their cricket bat in the backyard and having a go at any animal. We are certainly not advocating that at all.” Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad Ltd www.newsfromabroad.com