Sessional Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development Written Submissions Received Volume 2 Issues associated with the progressive entry into the Northern Territory of Cane Toads October 2003
Tabled Paper 1123
Tabled Papers for 9th Assembly 2001 - 2005; Tabled Papers; ParliamentNT
2003-10-16
Tabled by Delia Lawrie
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https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/307061
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/346011
Parks & Wildlife Commission NT Written Submissions Cane Toad Inquiry Report Volume 2 18 area, we go and drop ten baits around it and theyd come out and theyd feed on it and they go to sleep. Dr LAWSON: Not to my knowledge. I think the problem with cane toads is theyll eat more or less anything they can catch, so a cane toad specific bait would be I think almost impossible to find. Madam CHAIR: It would kill every other species around thats eat anything like it, yeah. Dr LAWSON: There are probable things we can try like the one thing weve been tossing around through my unit is that the one thing we noticed in the last two dry seasons in Darwin when we had the cane toads brought in, we think on removal vans, it was striking that in every instance they had these self watering pot plants in their possession and thats where we found the cane toads, so weve been toying with the idea of some sort of plastic thing that cane toads can get into so they can get refuge in it and then you could just pick it up and shove it in your freezer. And Im sure if an entrepreneur theres a sort of couple of million dollars to be made there somewhere. We are still sort of toying with that but how effective it would be, were not so actually certain but maybe we should have a play with that too. Mr BONSON: Maybe something the NT Government can develop and fund the project. Mr WOOD: Commercial in-confidence. Dr LAWSON: Weve already got a patented fox bait delivery thing that Glenn Edwards, our scientist in Alice Springs has just invented and thats, weve had great interest in that from Tasmania for obvious reasons, theyve got foxes there, they want to get rid of them but they dont want to kill all their dogs, so weve got this bait delivery system which only foxes can access which is pretty normal, so its not beyond us to actually think of Mr BALDWIN: How does it stop dogs from Dr LAWSON: Well it all came about when we were sitting and having a cup of coffee one day and we were tossing the ideas of foxes, dogs around and Glenn was actually holding a dogs skull and I picked up a fox skull and we looked at this and Glenn went Ah! and he just literally sketched this little thing out and said Im sure this would work. Basically its just a narrow bait delivery funnel and a counter-weight that they can get their nose in and dogs cant. Now obviously if youve got a very small dogs, tough. As far as dingoes are concerned you see, dingoes cant get at these baits delivery devises whereas foxes can and weve done some field tests and there are some goannas that get pretty smart and try and get the bait out of there and cats cant get at them