Answer to Tish's Question

Tish, we have not seen a living cane toad, but we have seen a dead one along the road and when we were at Wednesday market in Eumundi, one vendor was selling change purses made from the head and body of cane toads. I wanted to buy them for the girls but your mother didn't think they would like the idea. Aussies use the term "feral" to describe the epidemic of species introduced to their country that are now out of control, i.e., rabbits, foxes, cats and cane toads. The cane toad, introduced from Hawaii in 1935 (but originally from South America) to control control cane beetles, does not have a natural predator in Australia and are poisonous, causing some decline in populations that try to eat them, but the black kite (a bird) has learned to turn them over and attack their belly. They have succeeded in minimizing the cane beetle problem.