Following negotiations between FIDO president, Zela Bissett and the management of Kingfisher Resort, FIDO were offered two rooms for two nights during from 20-22 March with Zela and her partner Glen Hills, and Sandra and Navin Naidoo spending two nights at Kingfisher Bay Resort working on cane toad reduction.

After arrival, the team accompanied Ranger Indy on a tour of the boardwalk area where the Illumina light show is held. While Illumina was taking place, the team set off with buckets and grabbers patrolling lake sites around the accommodation blocks. Glen was the chief toad grabber, reporting that toads were three times the size of the ones captured during January’s mainland Cane Toad Bust (litter pickers had to be fully extended to reach around their bodies).

Sandra and Navin honed their grabbing technique and we soon had half a 20L bucket of mostly, very large adult toads. After Illumina was finished, Team Toad moved to the boardwalk area where another haul of very large adults and a few tiny freshly morphed juveniles were collected. Head Ranger Evan had organised a fridge freezer in the shed to humanely euthanise the 20L haul of adult toads.

The following morning three Watergum tadpole ‘drum’ traps were deployed at three different locations with a weight to prevent rolling, before baits were added. After the suggested 6 hours, the trap set in the Illumina lake had far more cane toad tadpoles than the other two. Although the traps placed in lakes around the accommodation blocks did contain tadpoles, these were not in such large numbers. Ranger Indy came down to help us strain the toad tadpoles out of the water before taking them to their shed to weigh, cool and freeze them.

Following the routine from the previous night, areas around the accommodation were patrolled while Illumina was on, with Team Toad also walking down towards the jetty to check the Wongari Den and Sand Bar areas. A large number of adult toads were dispersed across all areas requiring buckets to be emptied before surveying the Illumina boardwalk where again plenty of large adult toads and a few small ones were removed. The second haul was added to the first, to be processed by the resort’s rangers the next day.

On the final day, all three traps were deployed in the boardwalk area that yielded the most tadpoles the previous day. After the recommended six hours there were very large numbers (thousands) of cane toad tadpoles in all three traps. The scent plume from the lures requires some hours to disperse. Glen and Navin also experimented with scooping water from around the traps with pool scoopers catching a number of very advanced toad tadpoles almost ready to emerge onto dry land. A few small fish were found in each trap, but these were returned to the water still alive. Tadpoles were then strained out of the water and collected in a compostable plastic bag which was left with the toads for humane disposal, with Ranger Elke.

Moving forward, the program will need more helpers (volunteers and resort staff) to place, monitor and empty traps, and count captured toads and tadpoles. Navin’s step counter indicated the team had walked more than 8 kilometres each day, with hundreds of adult cane toads and thousands of tadpoles removed. A successful cane toad rodeo!

Article contributed by Zela Bissett, FIDO