Cane Toad Wars
About This Book
In 1935, an Australian government agency imported 101 specimens of the Central and South American Cane Toad in an attempt to manage insects that were decimating sugar-cane harvests. In Australia the Cane Toad adapted and evolved with abandon, voraciously consuming native wildlife and killing predators with its lethal skin toxin. Today, hundreds of millions of Cane Toads have spread across the northern part of Australia and continue to move westward. The humble Cane Toad has become a national villain. Cane Toad Wars chronicles the work of intrepid scientist Rick Shine, who has been documenting the toad's ecological impact in Australia and seeking to buffer it. Despite predictions of devastation in the wake of advancing toad hordes, the author's research reveals a more complex and nuanced story. A firsthand account of a perplexing ecological problem and an important exploration of how we measure evolutionary change and ecological resilience, this book makes an effective case for the value of long-term natural history research in informing conservation practice.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Cane Toad Wars
- Title
- Copyright
- CONTENTS
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 ⢠An Ecological Catastrophe
- 2 ⢠How the Cane Toad Came to Australia
- 3 ⢠Arrival of Cane Toads at Fogg Dam
- 4 ⢠How Cane Toads Have Adapted and Dispersed
- 5 ⢠The Impact of Cane Toads on Australian Wildlife
- 6 ⢠How the Ecosystem Has Fought Back
- 7 ⢠Citizens Take On the Toad
- 8 ⢠The Quest for a Way to Control the Toad
- 9 ⢠A New Toolkit for Fighting the Toad
- 10 ⢠Toad Control Moves from the Lab to the Field
- 11 ⢠What Weâve Learned
- Acknowledgments
- Appendix
- Bibliography and Suggested Reading
- Index
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR