Toads of Karragarra

Today on Karragarra
When walking down the road
I saw a kookaburra
Ignore a dead cane toad

Who was it that taught him
That it's bad to eat a toad
Looking fresh and tasty
Squashed upon the road

Perhaps when he was younger
He ate a little toad
And never has forgotten
That bitter poison load

There is plenty of evidence of kookaburras dying after eating cane toads but it looks like they are learning. It may be that mother kookaburras are teaching their young to avoid them but it is also likely that they have become ill after getting a sub-lethal dose from a small toad and avoid them ever after.  Let’s hope they continue to learn.

Toads are very destructive and not just because they poison the large predators. They breed like crazy and consume the insect and other resources needed by other wildlife. So the toads become fat and plentiful while everything else declines. They are bad news!

They are almost impossible to eradicate and it is easy to exacerbate the problem. We live on Karragarra Island on Moreton Bay. It is a long skinny ridge of an island flanked with mangroves and has little of the natural surface water necessary for toads to breed.  So how come it is teeming with toads? I discovered part of the answer on the western end of the island a few weeks ago. Someone had excavated a shallow depression, presumably as a source of fill for the adjacent road and rainwater had pooled in the depression. The shallow pond was teeming with distinctive jet black toad tadpoles and countless baby toads were swarming through the leafy surrounds and heading for the forest. With a large female toad capable of laying 30,000 to 40,000 eggs at a sitting it is a dire situation.