Cane toads wreaking more havoc

Written byBob Grant

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More bad news from Australia's war on linkurl:cane toads:;http://www.the-scientist.com/2008/4/1/48/1/ Now they're killing freshwater crocs. According to a linkurl:blog;http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2008/06/cane_toads_killing_crocs.html on __Nature__'s website, the invasive amphibians - which have recently hopped their way into the Northern Territory - are turning up in the stomachs of dead crocodiles. A linkurl:University of Sydney;http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=2&newsstoryid=2328 researcher linkurl:told;http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2037/cane-toads-killing-australian-crocs __Cosmos__ magazine that freshwater crocodile populations in the Northern Territory have dropped by about 70 percent since the toads invaded their habitat. "When we first went in we counted about 700 crocodiles [in one area] and found no dead ones at all," biologist Michael Letnic told __Cosmos__. "But then we went back...after the cane toads had started moving through. This time we found less than 400 crocodiles...and, in the space of a week, we found over 30 dead." Though cane toads seem to have no effect on the freshwater crocodile's brawnier, saltwater cousins, it may be time to expedite plans to enlist the Australian public in linkurl:hunting;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54524/ down the pests.

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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