once upon a time, in the not too distant past, yet sufficiently long ago so nobody around today needs to feel responsible, farmers in north queensland were in trouble. their sugar cane was not being consumed by people waiting to pay decent money for it, instead it was devoured by the despicable and above all freeloading cane bug.

rent-seeking is of course very much frowned upon in australia (unless it’s the socially acceptable form practised by high-rise apartment developers, mining giants or oil & gas companies; then it is actually strongly encouraged as a laudable form of creating jobs and growth and thus ensuring victory at the next election for those in power).

something had to be done, no matter the cost. so the bureau of sugar experiment stations, like any other upstanding industry funded group, took it upon itself to come up with a brilliant solution. they found the promisingly named cane toad in south america, and after the roaring success stories of introducing foxes, rabbits, cat and camels (to name but a few) they felt they didn’t want to be left behind in the mad scientist stakes (arguably some of the other animals were not actually released by mad scientists but instead by what we might refer to your garden variety village idiot). in august 1935 the merry men of the bureau of sugar experiment stations – who went a bit off the reserve there, experimenting with toads, should have stuck to their knitting – released 102 young cane toads. they never looked back – meaning the cane toads.

today there are an estimated 200 million toads across northern australia and their isn’t much stopping their progress given they have no natural predators on this continent. those that try to eat the toads, mistaking them for native frogs, die. northern quolls (also called the native cat) have been greatly reduced in numbers and are now endangered, but also bigger animals like the monitor lizard and even crocodiles are not immune. we heard today that there are concerns for the cute freshies in windjana gorge. the toads certainly are everywhere here in kakadu. i’m sure the people from the bureau of sugar experiment stations would be proud of what they have achieved.

and so they should be! except there is one little rub: the cane toads never ate the cane beetles. well, you can’t get all the details right …